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HENRY M. STANLEY. 



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stanley's 

Wonderful Adventures 




IN 



AFRICA. 



Comprising Accurate and Graphic Accounts of the Exploration of Equatorial 
Africa ; the Finding of Livingstone bj Stanley ; the Expedition to the Great 
Lakes by 'Sir Samuel Baker; the Discoveries of Lieutenant Cameron in 
His Overland Journey Across the Continent ; the Exploration of the 
Congo by Stanley; the Founding of the Congo Free State and 
the Opening of Equatorial Africa to Commerce, Civiliza- 
tion, and Christianity; the Heroic Work Wrought by 
Emin Pasha in the Egyptian Soudan; Stanley's 
Marvelous March Through the Wilderness 
to the Belief of Emin, and all the Treas; 
^^ ures of Geographical and Scientific j 

^'' Knowledge added to the World's 

Store of Learning by these ^ 
Gallant Enterprises. 

THE STORY OF THESE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES AND BRILLIANT ACHIEVEMENTS 
DOWN TO THE PRESENT DAY IS/^ULLY SET FORTH BY THE 






HON. J. T.^HEADLEY, 



Author of "Napoleon and His Marshals," "Washington and His Generals," "Sherman and His 
Campaigns," " Farragut and Our Naval Commanders," "Sacred Mountains," 
" Life of General Grant," etc. 

AND 

WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON, 

Author of "The Saga of the Mistletoe," "Landmarks," "Facts and Fancies of Evolution," 
" The Age of Commonplace," etc. 



RICHLY ILLUSTRATED. 



EDGEWOOD PUBLISHING CO. 



/ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in theyear 1889, by 

HUBBARD BROTHERS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 






INTRODUCTION. 



All explorations in Africa in former years were made 
by travelers simply to gratify curiosity or from a desire to 
penetrate beyond lines reached by other men. All the re- 
sults they desired or expected to achieve were amusement 
and fame. But in later years they have assumed an en- 
tirely different aspect. From Livingstone, who first began 
to open up the " dark continent/' to Cameron and Stanley, 
who pierced its very heart, all the explorations have tended 
to one great end — the civilization and Christianization of 
the vast population that inhabits it. No matter what the 
ruling motives may have been in each — whether, as in 
Livingstone, to introduce Christianity ; or, in Baker, to put 
a stop to the slave trade ; or, in Stanley, to unlock the mys- 
tery of ages — ^the tendency has been the same : to bring 
Africa into the family of continents instead of being the 
earth's " pariah ;" to throw light on this black sj)ot of our 
planet, and make those who inhabit it practically and 
morally what they are really — a portion of the human 
race. 

The men who have contributed most to this great end 
are those whose explorations are traced in this volume. 
As in all books of travel there is much that is merely per- 
sonal, and a great deal, though necessary to accurate geog- 
raphy and natural science, yet is of no interest to the ordi- 
nary reader, one is able to curtail them without in any way 
lessening their intrinsic value. So, also, the incidents and 
adventures of any special interest may be grouped together 
without all those minute details that go to make up a daily 
journal. In fact, the great drawback to the interest one 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

takes in a book of travels, is, those tedious details that go 
BO far toward making it up. What the traveler thinks 
worthy of recording, is not always what the reader deems 
worthy of perusal. There are also meteorological observa- 
tions, geological theories, dissertations on language and 
ethnological questions and statistics, that may be more or 
less valuable, and yet possess little interest to the general 
reader. All these may be left out or results alone given, 
without not only not injuring the book, but really adding 
to its interest. 

"VVe have acted on this theory in giving in one volume 
the contents of seven- In doing this, we have endeavored 
to leave out nothing of real value to the general reader, 
but, on the contrary, to make the narrative, by being more 
consecutive and direct, more interesting. The truth is, the 
trouble is not to make a large book of travels, but a com- 
pact, racy and readable one. The tendency always is to 
expand too much — to spread a little matter over a large 
space. The works of the travelers mentioned in this volume 
cover different ground, and hence each one possesses an 
interest peculiar to itself, while all tend to the same end. 
A person, therefore, who reads the narrative of only one, 
gets but a partial idea of what has been going on in Africa 
for the last few years. It is desirable to know all, and yet 
few can buy all the expensive books of the various travelers. 
We have in this work endeavored to meet that want, so that 
one, at a moderate expense, can acquaint iiimself with all 
that has been lately achieved in Africa, as well as obtain 
a thorough knowledge of the habits and customs of the 
various people and tribes that inhabit that continent. 

Acknowledgment is due and is hereby tendered to Messrs. 
Scribner & Co. for their kind permission to draw from 
Mr. Stanley's first volume, " How I Found Livingstone," 
in the preparation of this work. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



PACTB; 

How republican institutions develop character — Webster, Clay, Lincoln, 
Grant and Stanley — The latter a native of AVales — Educated in a poor-house 
— Becomes a teacher — Ships as a cabin-boy to New Orleans — Adopted by a 
merchant and takes his name — Lives in the Arkansas forest — Given up as 
dead by his adopted father — Returns on board a Mississippi fiat-boat — • 
Death of his father without making a will — Life with the miners and In- 
dians — Enters the Confederate army — Is taken prisoner — Enlists in the 
United States navy — Goes to join the Cretans to fight against Turkey-— 
Robbed by brigands — Travels — Visits his native place — Gives the children 
of the poor-house a dinner — Makes an address — Herald correspondent in 
the war between England and Abyssinia — Beats the governmental mes- 
senger — Sent to Spain as war correspondent — Receives a startling telegram 
from Mr. Bennett to come to Paris — Hasty departure — Affectionate part- 
ing with children — Singular interview with Mr. Bennett — Accepts the 
leadership of an expedition to find Livingstone — His peculiar fitness for 
the undertaking — His remarkable qualities as exhibited in this and in his 
last march across Africa 19 



CHAPTER 11. 

The Dark Continent" — Description of it — DifiSculties of exploring it — 
Hatred of white men — The first real encroachment made by a missionary 
— Description of the portion to be explored — Its articles of commerce — Its 
future destiny '. 42 



CHAPTER III. 

Oatlines of Livingstone's explorations during a period of nearly thirty years 
— First exploration — Crosses the continent from west to east — His second 
expedition — The last — His supposed death — Sympathy for him — Indiffer- 
ence of the British Government to his fate — Bennett's bold resolution to 
send Stanley after him 48 

7 



8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PAGB. 

Stanley's search for Livingstone — Lands at Zanzibar — Organizes his expedi- 
tion — The start — Stanley's feelings— The march — Its difficulties— Men 
sick — Delays — Meeting with a chief — Dialogue on the burial of a horse — 
Loss of his bay horse — Sickness and desertion — Terrible traveling — A 
hospitable chief — A gang of slaves — African belles — A ludicrous spectacle 
— A queer superstition — Punishment of a deserter — A ludicrous contrast — 
A beautiful country — News from Livingstone — A walled town — Stanley 
attacked with fever 55 



CHAPTER V. 

The rainy season sets in — Disgusting insects — The cook caught stealing — 
His punishment and flight— The march — Men dispatched after the missing 
cook — Their harsh treatment by the sultana of the walled town — A hard 
march — Crossing the Makata river — The rainy season ended — Five miles 
of wading— An enchanting prospect — Reaches his third caravan, and finds 
it demoralized — Shaw, its leader, a drunken spendthrift — Delays the 
march — Stanley's dispatch to him — Lake, Ugombo — Scene between Stan- 
ley and Shaw at breakfast, the latter knocked down — Attempt to murder 
Stanley — Good advice of an Arab sheikh — A feast — Farquhar left be- 
hind 70 



CHAPTER VI. 

Three of his caravans meet. — A waterless desert traversed — Stanley down 
with the fever — A land of plenty and of extortion — A populous district — 
A modern Hercules — An African village — Stanley curbs his temper for 
economy's sake — A good sultan — News from one of his caravans — Curious 
natives — Flogged by Stanley into proper behavior — Salt plains — Stanley 
stops to doctor himself — A curious visit from a chief — A noble African 
tribe — A mob — Quarrel over the route to be taken — Settled by Stanley — 
A merry march — Condensation of Stanley's account of the character of 
the country and the tribes of Central Africa 90 



CHAPTER VIL 

Reception in Unyanyembe — His house — Reports of the Chiefs of his caravans 
— A feast — Luxurious living of the Arabs — Arab country — War against 
Mirambo, in which Stanley becomes an ally — ;I8 taken sick — Bombay 
thrashed — Stanley joins the Arab army — Capture of Mirambo's strong- 
hold — Villages laid waste — Mirambo's revenge — Arabs defeated and 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. U 

PAGi:. 
Stanley left alone — Is sick — Final departure — His indomitable will 
and courage — A touching extract form his journal — Deserters — Shaw, the 
last white man, left behind — Corpses on the road — Mollifies a sullen chief 
— Strong medicine — A ludicrous scene — The paradise of hunters — A right 
Toyalhunt 118 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A beautiful picture — A mutiny — Narrow escape of Stanley — Saved by his 
prompt courage — Swift punishment of the leaders of the mutiny — Exciting 
news from Ujiji — Difficulties in the way — Resolves to go round the next 
village — Stealthy marching — A new danger — Vain attempt to stop a 
woman's screaming — Rapid marching — Stanley startled by the sound of 
waves bursting in rocky caverns — An unexpected danger — Narrow escape 
— The end approaches — Hurrah 134 



CHAPTER IX. 

View of the Tanganika — First sight of Ujiji — The American Flag — Living- 
stone's servants — Dr. Livingstone, I presume — The meeting — Livingstone's 
letter bag — A budget of news — Bringing new life — The cook's excitement 
— Livingstone's deplorable condition — The dream realized 143 



CHAPTER X. 
Rest at Ujija — Stanley's love for Livingstone the best eulogium on his own 
character — The night — The morning interview — Life with Livingstone — 
Survey the Tanganika together — Livingstone accompanies Stanley to 
Unyanyembe-^The long march — Life in the place — Preparations for 
parting— The last breakfast — The last sad farewell— Stanley's homeward 
march — Its perils — Inundations — Makata Swamp — Terrible marching — 
Stanley sends off for relief — Its arrival — Bagomayo reached at last — 
Noisy entrance — Stanley's joy — It is suddenly dashed — Cruel conduct of 
the press — Startfor home 160 



CHAPTER XL 

The Expedition of the Khedive of Egypt to suppress the slave trade — Sir 
Samuel W. Baker placed at the head of it — Extent of the slave trade — 
outfit of the expedition — Preparations on a grand scale— The army — The 
rendezvous at Khartoum — Failure on the part of the Khedive — The expe- 
dition starts — Obstacles met — Cutting channels for the fleet — Slow, toil- 
some work — A hippopotamus charges the vessel — Men become sick — Baker 
shoots a hippopotamus — A crocodile killed — The expedition permanently 
stopped — Discouragements 174 



10 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 

PAGX; 

Baker's heroic wife — A slaver caught — A sickening spectacle — Freedom — 
Description of the camp — A cargo of slaves discovered — Slaves freed — 
Wholesale matrimony — Exploring the White Nile — A new start — A new 
lake — The White Nile reached at last — A fierce night attack by a hippo- 
potamus — A thrilling scene — Gondokoro at last reached 193 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The country formally taken possession of — War at last — A night attack on a 
native village — Disaffection in the army — Attacked by crocodiles — An old 
man-eater killed — A campaign against the enemy — The army propose to 
return home — Baker obtains corn and restores subordination — The army 
greatly reduced — A fight — Target shooting at men 215 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Vessels leave for Khartoum with the invalids — Abdullah's villainy — Explor- 
ing the White Nile — Meeting a friendly tribe — Interview with the Sheikl 
Sorcery and Talismans — Magic — An elephant hunt — Its moral effects — 
Scramble for the flesh — The tribes seek peace— Elephants enter the fort — 
A wild scene — Elephants gathering fruit — An adventure with a hippo- 
potamus — The country at peace — Baker resolves to start south 235 



CHAPTER XV. 

The determination to advance-^A desperate position — Soldiers draw the ' 
carts to Lahore — A beautiful country — The future capital of Africa — 
Reaches Fatiko — power of music over the natives — Grotesque dancing of 
naked women — Starts for Unyoro — Beautiful country depopulated — Pro- 
claims peace — Livingstone 253 



CHAPTER XVL 

The start — Exodus of the white ants — A great luxury — A beautiful country 
— Masindi — King Abba Rega — His walk and appearance — The interview 
— Bufi"oons — Queer result of a lecture on the slave trade — A station com- 
menced — Planting vegetables — The king's visit — Magnetic battery — 
Photographs — A curious interview — Formal annexation of the country — 
Sends off a part of his force — Commerce established — Vegetables planted 
•—Dark omens — A drunken king — Asks after Livingstone — A fort built... 265 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER XVII. 

PAGB, 

The troops poisoned — A sudden attack — The town set on fire — A sad spec- 
tacle — Baker discouraged — A perilous position — Fears of Abdullah — 
Hypocrisy of Abba Rega — Presents pass between him and Baker — 
Treachery — A narrow escape — Baker's quarters set on fire — A second 
attack — The neighboring villages set on fire — Forethought of Baker's wife 
— Preparations to start for Rionga 275 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The start — The station fired — The march — The country aroused — An ambus- 
cade — Howarte speared — Second day's march — A sharp fight — Stripped 
for the race — Constant fighting — Eating the enemy's liver — Foweera at 
last reached — Interview with the king — His appearance — Baker ofi"ers to 
make him ruler over the territory of Abba Rega — A treaty made — Sealed 
by drinking each others' blood — Baker resolves to return to Fatiko — 
Arrival of messengers with bad naws — The return — The wife compelled to 
walk — Arrival at Fatiko — Treachery — The attack — Flight and pursuit— 
Th& victory — Baker turns surgeon 2B6 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Arrival of Cannibals — Children devoured — Small-pox disperses them — A 
grand hunt — The mode of conducting it by nets and fire — The result — 
Life at Fatiko — The second hunt — Killing a lion — A woman's rights 
meeting — A happy community, in which neither religious dagmas or law 
cases enter — News from Livingstone — King Mtesa — Arrival of reinforce- ' 

ments — Bad military conduct— Baker writes out a set of rules for Abdullah 
and starts for home — Releases captive women and children — An expression 
of gratitude not asked for — Kissed by a naked beauty — Concluding remarks 
— A missionary's outfit — Official report — A handsome tribute to his wife 
— Africa's future , $ 302 



CHAPTER XX. 

Cameron's expedition — Its origin — Change of leaders— Difficulties at the 
outset — Start— A tall and manly race — Naked savages — News from Liv- 
ingstone — A methuselah — The country improved — Unyanyembe reached 
— Occupies Stanley's house- — A slave auction — Sickness and discourage- 
ments — A stunning blow — Livingstone dead — Death of Dillon — Des- 
pondent thoughts — A desperate resolve — Crossing the Lugungwa — Ujiji... 322 



12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

PAGH 

Cameron pushes on to the Lualaba, and resolves to follow it to the sea — It 
has no connection with the Nile system — No canoes to be had — Tipo-Tipo 
— Handsome women — Inquisitiveness of the women — St9pped by a ruse — 
Interview with King Kasongo — Resolves to visit some curious lakes — At- 
tacked by the natives — Contracts with a slave-trader to take him to the 
coast — Explorations of lakes — Houses built in the lakes — Description of 
Kasongo and his character and habits — His harem — The rules that govern 
it — The religion of the country — A curious bridal ceremony — Floating 
islands — The Congo route abandoned 34(J 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The departure — Character of the caravan — Horible ceremonies at the burial 
of a chief of Urua — Start of the caravan — Its bad conduct — Joined by a 
slave-gang — Its sorrowful appearance — The camps of the caravan — Dreary 
marching — Appearance of the country — Naked women dressing their hair 
elaborately — Arrival at Alvez village — The luxury of coffee, onions and 
soap — Reduced state of Cameron's men — Reaches a Portuguese trader's 
house — A festival — A lascivious dance — Beautiful scenery — Interview 
with King Kongo — Cameron's sufferings begin — Desperate condition — A 
forced march to the sea with a few men — First sight of the sea — His wel- 
come — His dangerous sickness — Visit to the consul at Loanda — Men sent 
to Zanzibar — His return home— The slave trade 359 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Stanley thinks of Africa and Livingstone's unfinished work — Determines to 
complete it — Takes a boat of his own along — At Zanzibar again — Starts 
for the interior — Takes a new route — The country passed through — De- 
serted by his guides — Loses the path — A painful march — Starvation and 
death — A gloomy prospect — Two young lions killed and made into broth 
— A trunk used for a kettle— A painful spectacle — Men sent off lor food at 
last return — Joy of the camp — The march — A new type of natives— Naked 
beauty — Sickness and death — Death of Edward Pocoke — His burial — ■ 
Stanley's letter to his father — A m.an murdered — Itwru reached — A popu- 
lous plain — Intercourse with the people — A magic doctor 377 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The camp — View from it — Hostile demonstration — A three days' fight — A 
massacre — A modern Sodom — A terrible vengeance — Twenty-one of the 
expedition killed — A complete ruin — Provisions obtained — The march re- 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 13 

page" 
STimed — Only a hundred and ninety-four men left out of three hundred 
with which he started — A gloomy out-look — Mistaken for Mirambo — The 
Nyanza reached at last — A description of the country he had passed 
through 392 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Mustering his force — The death roll— Selecting a crew of eleven men, he 
sets sail — Leaves the camp in charge of Pocoke and Barker — "Speke's 
Bay " — Coasting northward — Shimeeyu River — A large island — Descrip- 
tion of the shores and people — Strange stories told him — A lonely channel 
— Superstition of the natives—" Bridge Island " — Under the equator — 
Stanley looked upon as a being from another world — Fleeing from hippo- 
potami — Treachery — A narrow escape — Three quarters of the lake tho- 
roughly explored 404 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Stanley the first white man that ever sailed round the Victoria Nyanza 
— Establishes the southern source of the Nile — Treachery of the natives — 
Stanley's revenge — A hostile fleet scattered by him — Three men killed — 
Two singular islands — The Ripon Falls — The Nile — Curious inlets — 
— Mtesa, king of Uganda — His reception of Stanley — Imposing ceremonies 
— A noble native monarch — His capital — His army and large territory — 
Half converted to Christianity by Stanley — Anxious to have missionaries 
sent to his country — Stanley's mode of sending them, and the kind of men 
they should be — A mission established and broken up — False statements 
in the papers about it corrected 415 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Stanley continues his explorations — Drunken natives — A suspicious recep- 
tion — A peaceful night — A wild waking up — A startling spectacle — Hur- 
ried departure — Magassa's fleet — Lack of food — A fearful storm — Bum- 
bireh Island — A bright prospect — Stanley entrapped — In deadly peril — 
A crowd of demons — A fearful night — Prompt action — Barely saved — - 
Swift and terrible revenge — A frightful storm — Refuge Island — A grateful 
camp — Provision secured — Another storm — A staunch boat — Steering for 
camp — His joyful greeting — Excitement of the men — The secret of the 
men's affection for him 424 



14 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The work accomplished — Feelings of satisfaction — Pocoke's report — A nar- 
row escape for the expedition — Death of Barker — Sweet repose— Pleasant 
•memories— Future anticipations — Waiting for Magassa — Resolves to re- 
turn to Uganda by land — Is prevented — Sends to the king of Ukerewe — 
His request granted — Visits him — The interview — Royal hospitality — A 
stratagem — Stanley starts for Uganda — A new camp — Return to the old 
one — Conspirators foiled — Refuge Island 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
A rest — Resolves to punish the Bumbireh — Sets sail — Message to the people 
of Bumbireh — Imprisons the king of Iroba — The king of Bumbireh in 
chains — Arrival of Mtesa's canoes — Hostility of the natives — Moves on 
Bumbireh — The savages expecting him — Plan of battle — The battle — 
Killed and wounded — Rejoicing over the victory — The natives completely 
subdued — Stanley gives them a lecture — Effect of the victory on the 
neighboring tribes — His losses — Prepares to start for the Albert Nyanza 
—Size of the Victoria Nyanza — Muta Nzinge~Is it and the Albert one 
lake — Stanley's journal and map do not agree — Mtesa at war — Stanley 
aids him — Uganda— Abba Rega once more — Baker's and Stanley's journal 
agree — Stanley asks for fifty thousand men — Mtesa gives him two thousand 452 

CHAPTER XXX. 
Force of the expedition — Its start — First march — Through hostile Unyoro — 
The encampment — Mount Gambaragara — Its summit occupied by white 
people — Live on a rock in the middle of a lake — Their origin — Other 
strange tribes — The march — Frightened people — The lake reached with- 
out opposition — A miserable failure — ^The reason of it — Stanley's feelings 
• — The return — Report to Mtesa — His wrath — Liberal offers — "Wonders of 
the country — A generous, peaceful king — Lake Windomere — Source of the 
Nile — Absurd theories — The hot springs of Mtagata 462 

CHAPTER XXXI. 
Back to Ujiji — Pleasant associations — The mystery of Tanganika — No outlet 
■ — Cameron's expedition — Thinks he discovers the outlet — Doubts of Stan- 
ley — The lake constantly rising — Stanley starts to examine for himself — • 
Bags two zebras — A whole village massacred — Reaches Cameron's outlet 
• — Explores it thoroughly — Declares Cameron to be mistaken — The future 
outlet — Livingstone's influence — The small pox in camp — Desertion of his 
men — Prompt measures — Crosses the Tanganika — More desertions — People 
of Manyema — Singular customs 484 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
Livingstone at Nyangwe — Remembrance of him by the natives — " The good 
man " — His troubles here awakens Stanley's pity — A magnificent country . 
—Glowing description of it — Ruined by slavery — The slave trade — Its 
character — Ebony skeletons — Horrible sights — The traders — Mode of cap- 
ture — Faithlessness of the Prince of Zanzibar — Extracts from Stanley's 
journal — A depopulated country — The way to stop the traffic 493 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 15 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

PAOR 

Stanley meets Tipo-tipo, the friend of Cameron — Learns all about Cameron's 
movements — Stanley warned not to go on — Fearful stories — Contracts 
with Tipo-tipo to escort him sixty camps — Self-reliance of Stanley — 
"Women an obstacle in the way of advancing — Nyangwe — Its market — A 
lively scene — The two chiefs — A large harem — The original inhabitants — 
Strength of the expedition 502 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 
The great march begins — Gloomy prospects — March through a dense forest — 
Axes used to clear the way — A village in the forest — Superiority of 
the inhabitants — The men disheartened — Slow marching — Discontent — 
Difficulties increase — Tipo-tipo wishes to be released from his engagement 
- — People that smelt iron-ore — A row of skulls as an ornament for the 
village — Hunting sokos — The cannibals — Naked women — The Lualaba 
reached — Not to be left again — The natives crossing the river 512 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
Congo changed to Livingstone — Frightened natives — The march — Deserted 
villages-^The land party lost — Stanley's anxiety — A dash on the natives, 
one man killed — Uledi dispatched after the missing party — The lost found 
^—The march — A floating hospital — Passing rapids— Tipo-tipo wishes to 
turn back — A queer village — Increasing sickness — The dead every day 
thrown into the river — A fight — Marching on — A desperate fight of two 
days — A successful stratagem — Tipo-tipo resolves to leave — Stanley's 
speech to his men — Christmas day — A frolic — A boat race — The parties 
separate — A touching farewell — A sad day — Stanley tries to arouse the 
men \ 522 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 
A common fate binding all — "We want to eat you" — The home of the hip- • 
popotamus — The persuasive eloquence of the cannibal prisoners — A novel 
sensation — A peaceful tribe — The cannibals prevent a fight — A sudden 
attack — A successful stratagem — Another fight — A hard carry around the 
falls — An advanced tribe — River full of islands — Magnificent scenery—* 
Stanley's expedition — A grand barbecue — A necessary fight — Night-work 
— Seventy-eight hours' incessant toil — Passing the rapids — A lost man — 
A thrilling spectacle — G-reat daring — Lost men — A fearful night — Rescue 
in the morning — Brave Uledi — A carry round the falls — A brilliant ma- 
noeuvre — In a net — Man meat — Another fight — The Congo starts for the 
sea — Another fight — A deserted village — Around the falls — Muskets — A 
fight — Home of the hippopotami — A new war-cry — Astonishment of the 
natives at seeing a white man — More enemies — Stanley's speech — A fight — 
Three hundred and fifteen muskets against forty-four — Starving — Friendly 
savages — Abundant provisions — Death and burial of a chieftain's wife — 
A friendly tribe — Beautiful women — Serpents in camp — The last and 
fiercest fight — Stanley Pool-^Friendly chiefs — Curious interview with 
King Itsi — A general peace 53^ 



16 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

PAG a 
Tribal differences — "What is the cause of them — The Congo tribes — The can- 
nibals left behind — Change of scenery — Livingstone Falls — A wild stretch 
of water — Carrying boats over land — Exhausting, slow work — A canoe 
lost — Stanley falls thirty feet — Rocky Falls — A fearful sight— Kalulu 
over the falls — A canoe shoots the Kalulu Falls in safety — A third canoe 
shoots the falls and disappears — Soudi's strange story — More rapids — 
Difficulties increase — Narrow escape of Stanley — Joy at his deliverance — 
Four cataracts in sight — Strange music — Less than a mile a day — The 
big cataract — Scaling a mountain one thousand feet high — Astonishment 
of the natives 554 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
Last instructions — A magnificent forest — Stanley thinks of dug-outs at home 
— Resolves to build canoes — The first tree felled — Two canoes finished — 
The boats and expedition moving overland — Arabs stealing — Redeeming 
a captive held for theft — Canoes over the mountain — Rest — Third canoe 
built — Dispiriting news— Native superstition — A narrow escape — Launch- 
ing of the third canoe — Rains — Rise of the river — Storms — The expedition 
moves over the mountain — Frank takes the canoes by the river — Mowwa 
Falls — A terrific scene — Passing the Mowwa Falls — Uledi caught in Lheft 
- — His sentence — A touching scene — Atonement — Forgiveness — Christian 
principles in Heathens — A atrange superstition — The natives demand that 
Stanley's note-book be burned up — A painful dilemma — A successful 
stratagem — Shakespeare burned — Frank's last night with Stanley 567 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Elevated from the place of servant to that of friend — Proposes to toss up to 
determine whether they shall follow the Lualaba to the sea or not — Chance 
decides they shaU — Pocoke's shoes become worn out in the forest — Is made 
lame — Passage of the Mowwa Falls — Stanley's peril — Pocoke's fatal self- 
will — His death — The sight that stunned Stanley — A gloomy night for 
him — Pocoke's character : 577 

CHAPTER XL. 
Stanley mourning for his friend — A mutiny — Sadness of Stanley — Return of 
the deserters — Boats carried over a hill — The chief carpenter carried over 
the falls — Stanley runs the Mbelo Falls — Miraculous escape — Feeling of 
his people — The end of the chasm — One mile and a quarter a day for eight 
months — The Arabs steal, and are made prisoners — Arabs left in slavery 
for stealing — Falls of Isingila reached — Stanley resolves to leave the river 
— The Lady Alice abandoned — The march for Boma— Uledi slaps a king 
in the face— Stanley sends a letter to Boma — The messengers depart — He 
moves on — Meets an enemy who becomes a friend — A glad surprise — 
Food in abundance — Luxuries for Stanley — A song of triumph — Stanley's 
feelings, as shown by his letter — Reach Boma — The reaction — Stanley 
offered a steamer home — Prefers to stand by his Arabs^ — Reception at Cape 
Town — Zanzibar reached — Joy of the Arabs— An affecting scene — Farewell 
to Stanley 587 



TABLE OF COXTENTS. 17 

CHAPTER XLI. 



PAGE. 

Securing the fruits of victory — Summoned to Brussels by King Leopold 
— Graphic description of the resources and needs of the country — A 
company formed and an expedition organized — Arrival at Banana — A 
cranky lot of steamboats — Ascending the river — Miissuko the first 
station— Left to their own resources — Bargaining with the natives 606 



CHAPTER XLII. 

Vivi, the second station, paid for with too high a price — Planning for a city 
— Building roads and conveying steamboats overland around the cataracts 
— Leopoldville and Stanley pool — Friendliness of the natives — Slave trad- 
ers — Civilization of a bloodthirsty chief 613 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

Location of villages along the river — How the huts are built — Furniture— 
An abundance of idols — Protection against crocodiles — The white man's 
powerful fetish — Conceptions of the deity — King Nrisundi's court — A 
royal reply and a royal gift — Forcible purchase — Shrewd negro bargainers 
— Occupations of the natives — Fishing and hunting — Dangerous sport with 
the hippopotamus 619 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

Organizing a Government for the new State— The Berlin Congress — Modern 
improvements introduced into the wilderness — Area of the Congo State — 
Its lakes and rivers — Length and volume of the Congo river — The scenery 
along its shores — Peculiar effect of African sunshine— Population of the 
free State — The climate — Comparison with the Mississippi Valley — 
Natural resources 628 



CHAPTER XLV. 

Another call to duty — The history of Emin Pasha — Mr. Gladstone's infa- 
mous desertion of the Soudan — Emm's faithfulness — Civilizing the equa- 
torial province — Notes on life in mid-Africa — Sublimity of the forests — 
Home manufactures in a state of siege — Compulsory temperance — Trust- 
ing in God after man had abandoned him to his fate 635 



18 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

PAGR. 

Back to the dark continent — An expedition to save life, not to destroy — • 
Farewell chat at Cairo — The Nile as a highway of commerce — How the 
Nile might easily be dried up — Preparations at Zanzibar — Up the Congo 
again — Plunging into the wilderness — Conflicting rumors — Osman Digma's 
monumental lie — Disasters on the Congo — Mr. Joseph Thomson's gloomy 
forebodings 644 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

Stanley reaches Emin — His story of the journey — Molested at the start — A 
terrific march — Heavy losses — Men corrupted by the Arabs — Naked and 
starving — A land of desolation — Punishing mutineers — Out of the woods 
— First view of the promised land — More enemies — A parley — Fighting 
their way— On the shore of Albert Nyanza at last — Doubtful friends — 
Marching back for help and supplies 653 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

Stanley prostrated with fever — Among friends — A letter from Emin — On 
the Nyanza — Meeting with Emin — Back through the wilderness — Learn- 
ing of disasters — A meagre wardrobe — The great equatorial forests — A 
nameless mountain — Discussing Emin's condition — Emin's determination 

to stick to the post of duty 664 

4 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

The misfortunes of the expedition due to the jungles — The forests through 
which Livingstone struggled — Mr. Stanley's description of the boundless 
woods — Horrors of the march — Emerging into the sunshine — Feasting in 
a land of plenty — Scenes in the villages — Geographical results of the ex- 
pedition — The Aruwimi — A snow-capped mountain at the equator — The 
lakes—Cannibals— Mr. Stanley's future work and fame 675 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Frontispiece — Heney M. Stanley. 

?AGE 

Noted Explorers 27 

Zanzibar 57 

Natives putting off to a Vessel 57 

Landing a Crocodile 61 

Moving Roofs of Huts 77 

Doing Honors to the Queen 77 

Shooting Hippopotami 8'i 

Potpourri 105 

African Warfare 11] 

Dance in honor of the Moon Ill 

Human Sacrifices 115 

Execution for Witchcraft 115 

Council of War 119 

Hippopotami Sporting with their Yonng 119 

Saluting a Superior 127 

A King Traveling 127 

Stalking the Sentry 129 

Stanley meeting Livingstone 149 

Dr. David Livingstone 155 

Village on Tanganika Lake 163 

The Forty Thieves 179 

Hippopotamus capsizing the Dingy.. 183 

Hauling the Steamer through the midst of the vegetable obstructions 187 

Crocodile mobbed in the Sudd ]89 

Hippopotamus kills the Blind Sheikh in the Shillook Country 201 

Arrival at the Stoppage — The Baleniceps Rex 205 

Sandal, Pipe, etc 209 

Attack in the Night 213 

Attack on the Rear Guard 229 

Elephants in a Difficulty ■ 241 

Shaking down the Fruit 249 

Musical Enthusiasts 263 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Pack 
General Night Attack of the Savages 283 

Beception of Rionga 291 

The Slave- Hunters Attack at Fatiko 297 

Net Hunting 307 

Driving the Prairie with Fire 307 

Charge of a Lioness 311 

Map of Baker's Discoveries 317 

Natives' Weapons 325 

Our Camp 333 

Temporary Village in which Dr. Livingstone's Body was Prepared 337 

Crossing the Lugungwa River 343 

The Chief 's Village 347 

Great Chiefs Returning a Visit 351 

Scene in Alvez Boma 365 

Burial of Pocoke 387 

Scene in Camp 393 

Reception by Mtesa's Body-Guard, Prime Minister and Chiefs 417 

An Unpleasant Situation 431 

Dash across Unyoro 463 

Hot Springs of Mtagata 477 

Setting out to Cross Lake Tanganika 491 

Chief's Home at Nyangwe 503 

Nyangwe 503 

Hunting Sokos 517 

Fighting our Way Round 535 

Fight with the Savages 545 

Death of Kalulu -. 559 

Drowning of Pocoke 581 

Scaling the Rapids 591 

Emin Pasha .• 68 J 



CHAPTER I. 



HEXRY M. STANLEY. 

UOVf EEPrBLICAN IXSTIXrTIOKS DEVELOP CHAEACTER— WEBSTER, CLAY, ITXCOLN, GXAin 
AND STANLEY— THE LATTER A NATIVE OF WALES— EDUCATED IN A POOK-HOUSE— BECOMES A 
TEACHER— SHIPS AS A CABIN-BOY TO NEW ORLEANS— ADOPTED BY A MERCHANT AND TAKES HI3 
NAME— LIVES IN THE ARKANSAS FOREST— GIVEN TP AS DEAD BY HIS ADOPTED FATHER— RE- 
TURNS ON BOARD A MISSISSIPPI FLAT-BOAT— DEATH OF HIS FATHER WIT'iOUT MAKING A WILL 
—LIFE WITH THE MINERS AND INDIANS— ENTERS THE CONFEDERATE ASlMY— IS TAKEN PRIS- 
ONER-ENLISTS IN THE UNITED STATES NAVY— GOES TO JOIN THE CRETANS TO FIGHT AGAINST 
TURKEY— ROBBED BY BRIGANDS— TRAVELS — VISITS HIS NATIVE PLACE— GH'ES THE CHILDREN 
OF THE POOR-HOUSE A DINNER — MAKES AN ADDRESS — HERALD CORRESPONDENT IN THE WAR 
BETWEEN ENGLAND AND ABYSSINIA — BEATS THE GOVERNMENTAL MESSENGER— SENT TO SPAIN 
AS WAR CORRESPONDENT— RECEIVES A STARTLING TELEGRAM FROM MR. BENNETT TO COME TO 
PARIS— HASTY DEPARTURE— AFFECTIONATE PARTING WITH CHILDREN— SINGULAR INTERVIEW 
WITH MR. BENNETT— ACCEPTS THE LEADERSHIP OF AN EXPEDITION TO FIND LIVINGSTONE — 
H^S PECULIAR FITNESS FOR THE UNDERTAKING— HIS REMARKABLE QUALITIES AS EXHlBITiU) 
IN THIS AND IN HIS LAST MARCH ACROSS AFRICA. 

STANLEY is one of those characters that forcibly iUus- 
trate the effect of republican institutions in dev doping 
a strong man. Despotism cannot fetter thought — that is 
free everywhere — but it can and does restrain its outwork- 
ing into practical action. The former do not make great 
strong men, they allow those endowed by nature with 
extraordinary gifts, free scope for action. This fact never 
had, perhaps, a more striking illustration than in the 
French Revolution. The iron frame- work of despotism 
had rested so long over the heads of the people that it had 
become rusted in its place, and no individual force ot 
strength could rend it asunder. But when the people, in 
their fury, shattered it into fragments, there was exhibited 
the marvelous effects of ifLdividual character. A lieutenant 
of artillery vaulted to the throne of France and made 
2 19 



20 EFFECT OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS. 

marshals and dukes and kings of plebeians. A plebeian 
himself, he took to his plebeian bed the daughter of the 
Caesars. He took base-born men and pitted them against 
nobles of every degree, and the plebeians proved themselves 
the better men. In other words, he put men against titles, 
and the titles went down before the men. Thus, no matter 
how despotic he became, he and his marshals and new- 
made kings were the most terrible democracy that could 
be preached in Europe. The mighty changes that were 
wrought, simj)ly show what results may be expected when 
the whole world shall be thus set free and every man be 
allowed to strike his best and strongest blow. When the 
race is thus let loose on the planet we inhabit, we shall see 
the fulfillment of that prophecy, "a nation shall be born in 
a day." The same truth is apparent in our own country, 
though its exhibitions are not so sudden and startling. 
Indeed they could not be, because this freedom of action 
has no restraints to break through, and hence no violent 
effort is required. Every man grows and expands by degrees 
without let or hindrance. In a despotism, "Webster would 
probably have taught school in a log school-house all his 
days, and the "mill boy of the sloshes" never made the great 
forum of a nation ring with his words of eloquence, nor 
the '^ rail-splitter" been the foremost man of his time, nor 
the tanner- boy the president of the republic. Republican 
institutions never made any of those men, they simply 
allowed them to make themselves. Stanley is the latest 
and most extraordinary example of this. It is. folly to 
point to such men as he as a stimulus to youthful ambition, 
to show what any man may become. No amount of study 
or effort can make such a boy or man as he was and is. 
The energy, daring, self-confidence, promptness and indom- 
itable will were born in him, not acquired. The Latin 
proverb, "'Foeta nascitur, non fit,'' the poet is born, not 



Stanley's birthplace and real name. 21 

made, is not truer of the poet than of a character like liim. 
His characteristics may be pointed out for the admiration 
of others, his good qualities made a lesson to teach youth 
how perseverance, and determination, and work will elevate 
a man whatever may be his walk in life. A man born 
with a combination of qualities like Stanley's, must have 
room given him or he will make room. He has such a 
surplusage of energy and will-power that it must have 
scope and field for action. A despotism could not have 
repressed him. He would either have become a wanderer 
or adventurer in strange lands, or he would have headed a 
revolution, vaulted to power or to a scaffold, as others have 
done before him. 

But although Stanley developed his whole character 
under free institutions, he Avas not born under them, being 
a native of Wales. He was born near Denbigh, in 1840. 
His parents' name was Rowland. At three, he was sent to 
the poor-house at St. Asaph, to get an education. Here 
the poor, unpromising lad remained till he had finished 
such an education as this institution could furnish, and 
then sought employment as teacher ; and for a year was 
employed as such at Mold, Flintshire. But now the strong- 
instincts of his nature began to show themselves. He felt 
. that a school-teacher's life, however honorable and useful, 
could not be his, and, with his scant earnings, shipped as 
cabin-boy in a ship bound for New Orleans. Arriving in 
safety, he began to look about for employment. By what 
lucky chance it happened we do not know, but he fell into 
the hands of a merchant named Stanley, who became so 
attached to the frank, energetic, ambitious youth that he 
finally adopted him and gave him his name. Thus the 
Welsh boy Rowland became the American youth Stanley. 
Fortune had certainly smiled on him, and his future seemed 
Becure. As the partner and eventually heir of his 



22 FORTUNE DESERTS HIM. 

benefactor, as he doubtless would become, fortune, ease and 
a luxurious life lay before him. But even here, so pleas- 
antly situated and cared for, the same restless spirit that 
has since driven him over the world, exhibited itself, and 
he wandered off into the wilds of Arkansas, and in his 
log-cabin on the banks of the Wichita Eiver, with the 
pine-trees moaning above him, he dwelt for a long time, 
among the strange, wild dreams of imagination and daring 
youth. His adopted father mourned him as dead, never 
expecting to behold him again. But he made his way to 
the Mississippi, and going on board a flat-boat, became the 
companion of the rough western characters to be found on 
these boats, and slowly floated down to New Orleans and 
was received by his overjoyed father as one risen from the 
dead. 

But just here, fortune, which seemed to have had hira in 
her special care, took him another step forward by appa- 
rently deserting him. His adopted father suddenly died 
without making his will. His place and prospective heir- 
ship both disappeared together, and the curtain was let down 
between him and a pleasant successful future. Doubt- 
less that father intended to provide for his adopted son, but 
now all the property went to the natural legal heirs, and he 
was once more thrown upon the world. In the delirium of- 
an African fever, tossing in his hammock, far from the 
haunts of civilization, there came back to him an episode of 
his life at this point. We learn that impelled by his roving 
disposition he wandered away among the California miners, 
and at last among the Indians, and sat by their council fires. 
He seemed destined to see every phase of human life, to 
become acquainted with the roughest characters, to prepare 
him for the wildest of all men, the African savage. This 
kind of life also toughened and hardened the fibre of the 
youth, so that he settled down into the man with a constitu- 



HIS MILITARY SERVICES. 23 

tion of iron, without which he could not haye endured the 
trials he has since undergone, and still retain his health and 
physical powers unworn. At this time a new field opened 
before him. The civil war broke out, and being a Southern 
man, he enlisted in the Confederate army. This was a kind 
of service just adapted to his peculiar character, one in 
which a man with the courage, daring, energy, promptness 
and indomitable will that he possessed, was sure to win fame 
and promotion. But before he had time to exhibit these 
qualities, fate, that seemed against him to human eyes, 
again advanced him a step toward future success by causing 
him to be taken prisoner by the Union troops. As a prisoner 
he was worthless, and the Union cause really having his 
sympathies, he proposed to enlist in the Northern army. 
"Whether the military authorities were afraid of this sudden 
conversion, or not daring to give too much freedom of 
action to one who showed by his whole bearing and lan- 
guage, that there was no undertaking too daring for him 
to attempt, we are not told, but they put him where he 
would probably have little chance to show what stuff he 
was made of, and he was placed on the iron-clad ship 
Ticonderoga. It is said, he was released as prisoner and 
volunteered to enlist in the navy. Be that as it may, though 
totally unfit for service of any kind on board of a man-of- 
war, he soon became acting ensign. At the close of the war 
he looked about for some field of active service, and what 
little war he had seen seemed to fit his peculiar character, 
and hearing that the Cretans were about to attempt to throw 
off the Turkish yoke, he resolved to join them. He proceeded 
thither with two other Americans, after having first made 
an engagement with the New York Herald, as its corres- 
pondent. Disgusted, it is said, with the insurgent leaders, 
he abandoned his purpose, and having a sort of roving 
commission from Mr. Bennett, he determined to travel in 



24 VISITS HIS BIKTHPLACE. 

the East. But he and his fellow-travelers were attackecJ 
by Turkish brigands, and robbed of all their money and 
clothing. They laid their complaint before Mr. Morris, 
our minister at Constantinople, who in turn laid it before 
the Turkish government. At the same time he advanced 
them funds to supply their wants and they departed. After 
various journey ings he finally returned to England. Here 
a strong desire seized him to visit the place of his nativity 
in Wales, the house where he was born, and the humble 
dwelling where he received the first rudiments of his edu- 
cation at St. Asaph. One can imagine the feelings with 
which this bronzed young man, who had traveled so far 
and wide, entered the quiet valley from which he had 
departed so long ago to seek his fortune. It speaks well 
for his heart, that his sympathies turned at once toward the 
poor-house of which he had been an inmate in his childhood. 
Remembering that the greatest boon that could have been 
conferred at that time on him w^ould have been a good, 
generous dinner, he resolved to give those poor children 
one. One would like to have been present at it. The 
daring young adventurer in the presence of those simple, 
wonderstruck children would make a good subject for -a 
picture. We venture to say that Mr. Stanley enjoyed that 
unobtrusive meal in that quiet Welsh valley more than he 
has ever since enjoyed a banquet with nobles and princes ; 
and as the shadows of life lengthen he will look back on it 
with more real pleasure. He addressed them, giving them 
a familiar talk, telling them that he was once one of their 
number, accompanying it with good advice, saying for their 
encouragement, and to stimulate them to noble endeavors, 
that all he had been in the past and all he hoj)ed to be in the 
future, he should attribute to the education he had received 
in that poor-house. 

This was a real episode in his eventful life, and, though 



BEATING THE ENGLISH GOVEKNMENT. 25 

it doubtless soon passed away in the more stirring scenes 
on which he entered, yet the remembrance of it still lin- 
gers around that quiet, retired Welsh valley, and, to-day, 
the name of Stanley is a household word there, and the 
pride and glory of its simple inhabitants. And as time 
goes on and silvers chose dark hairs, and the " almond-tree 
flourishes" and "desire fails, because man goeth to his 
long home," he, too, will remember it as one of those green 
oases he once longed to see and found in the arid desert. 

In 1867, then twenty-seven years of age, he returned to 
the United States and, in the next year, accompanied the 
English army in its campaign against Theodore, king of 
Abyssinia, set on foot to revenge the wrongs the latter had 
committed against the subjects and representatives of the 
British government. He went as correspondent of the 
New York Herald, and gave a vivid and clear account of 
the painful march and skirmishes up to the last great bat- 
tle in the king's stronghold, where, with a gallant dash, 
the fortress was taken, the king killed and the war ended 
With that promj)tness in acting, which is one of his chief 
characteristics, he at once dispatched the news of the vic- 
tory and the ending of the campaign to London, beating 
the governmental dispatches sent by the commander-in- 
chief, so that one morning the readers of the London 
newspapers knew that of which the government was igno- 
rant. This, of course, was a genuine surprise. A young 
American newspaper correspondent, without a vessel at his 
command, had, nevertheless, by his enterprise, beat the 
governmental messenger, and steady old conservative 
England was disgusted to find its time-honored custom re- 
versed, which was that the government should fi ijst give 
notice of successes to the 23ublic, leaving to newspaper cor- 
respondents to fill up the minor details. But an enter- 
prising young American had furnished the important 



26 SENT TO SPAIN, 

news, leaving the British government the secondary dutj 
of supplying these details. Notwithstanding the admira- 
tion of the enterprise that had accomplished this great feat, 
there was a ludicrous aspect to the affair, in the position in 
which it placed official personages, that raised a quiet laugh 
on both continents. His letters contain the best history of 
that expedition that has ever been written. This was still 
another onward step in the great work before him, of 
which he, as yet, had no intimation. The next year, 1868, 
he returned to the United States, and in the following year 
was sent by the Herald into Spain, to follow the fortunes 
of the civil war there, as correspondent. Like everything 
else that he undertook, he performed his duties more than 
faithfully. Exposure, danger, hardships, nothing inter- 
fered when there was a prospect of acquiring valuable in- 
fortnation. It mattered not to him whether he was on the 
margin or in the vortex of battle — he never thought of 
anything but the object before him and toward which he 
bent all his energies. His letters from the seat of war not 
only gave the best description of the battles fought and of 
the military position of affairs, but, also, of the political 
state of the kingdom. But while he was here, considering 
himself fixed down for an indefinite period, for Spain is 
proverbial for the protracted duration of its civil wars, 
Mr. Bennett, in Paris, was planning an expedition to go in 
search of Dr. Livingstone, buried, alive or dead, somewhere 
in the heart of Africa. The sympathies of everybody 
were enlisted in his fate, yet the British government, 
though he had done so much to enhance the fame of his 
native country, refused to stir a step toward ascertaining 
his fate or relieving him if in want or bondage. The Boyal 
Geographical Society, ashamed of the apathy and indiffer- 
ence of the government, had started a subscription to raise 
funds from private sources to defray the expenses of an ex- 




NOTED TRAVELERS. 



MR. Bennett's profound sagacity. -29 

pedition to go in search of him. In the meantime this 
American editor, scorning alike state patronage or private 
help, conceived the bold project of finding him himself. 
Looking round for a suitable leader to command an expe- 
dition, his eye rested on Stanley in Spain. And here 
should be noted the profound sagacity of Mr. Bennett in 
selecting such a leader for this desperate expedition, that 
was to go no one knew where, and end no oiie knew at what 
point. Most people thought it was a mammoth advertise- 
ment of the New York Herald, nothing more. If he was 
in earnest, why did he not select some one of the many 
African explorers who were familiar with the regions of 
Central Africa, and had explored in the vicinity of where 
Livingstone was, by the best judges, supposed to be, if 
alive? Men, for instance, like Speke, Baker, Burton, 
Grant and others. This certainly would have given great 
eclat to the expedition, and, if it failed in its chief object^ 
would unquestionably furnish new facts for the geographer 
and the man of science. But to send one who made no pre- 
tensions to science, no claims to be a meteorologist, botanist, 
geologist, or to be familiar with astronomical calculations, 
all of which are indispensable to a great explorer, seemed 
absurd. But Mr. Bennett had no intention of making 
new scientific or geographical discoveries. He had but one 
object in view — ^to find Dr. Livingstone — and on the true 
Napoleonic system of selecting the best man to accomplish 
a single object, he, with Napoleonic sagacity, fixed on 
Stanley. The celebrated men who would have given 
greater distinction to the enterprise would, doubtless, divide 
up their time and resources between scientific research and 
the chief object of the expedition, and thus cause delays 
that might defeat it ; or, with more or less of the martinet 
about them, push their researches only to a reasonable ex- 
tent and be content with reports instead of personal inves- 



CO QUICKNESS OF JUDGMENT. 

ligation. But lie wanted a man who nad but one thing to 
do, and not only that, but a man who would accomplish 
the errand on which he was sent or die in the attempt. 
This was to be no mere well-regulated expedition, that was 
to turn back when all reasonable efforts had been made. 
It was one that, if desperate straits should come, would re- 
sort to desperate means, and he knew that with Stanley at 
its head this would be done. He knew that Stanley would 
fetch out Livingstone, dead or alive, or leave his bones to 
bleach in the wilds of Africa. The latter was compara- 
tively young, it was true ; had always accompanied, never 
led, expeditions. He knew nothing of Africa, how an ex- 
pedition should be organized or furnished ; it mattered not. 
Bennett knew he had resources within himself — nerves 
that never flinch, courage that no amount of danger could 
daunt, a will that neither an African fever nor a wasted 
form could break down, and a resolution of purj)ose that 
the presence of death itself could not shake, while, to 
complete all, he had a quickness and accuracy of judgment 
in a perilous crisis, followed by equally quick and right 
action, which would extricate him out of difficulties that 
would overwhelm men who had all his courage, will and 
energy, but were slower in coming to a decision. This lat- 
ter quality is one of the rarest ever found even in the strongest 
men ; to think quick and yet think right, to come to a 
right decision as if by impulse, is a power few men possess. 
To go swift and yet straight as the cannon ball or light- 
ning's flash, gives to every man's actions tenfold power. 
In this lay the great secret of Napoleon's success. The 
campaigns were started, while those of others were under 
discussion, and the thunder and tumult of battle cleared 
his perceptions and judgment so that no unexpected disaster 
could occur that he was not ready to meet. This quickness 
and accuracy of thought and action is one of the promi- 



THE SECKET OF STANLEY'S SUCCESS. oj 

nent characteristics of Stanley, and more than once saved 
his life and his expedition. 

On the 16th day of October, 1869, as he was sitting in 
his hotel at Madrid, having just returned from the car- 
nage of Valencia, a telegram was handed him. The 
thunder of cannon and tumult of battle had scarce ceased 
echoing in his ear when this telegram startled him from 
his reverie, " Come to Paris on important business." In a 
moment all was hurry and confusion, his books and pic- 
tures were packed, his washed and unwashed clothes were 
stowed away, and in two hours his trunks were strapped 
and labeled " Paris." The train started at 3 o'clock, and 
he still had some time to say good-bye to his friends, and 
here by mere accident comes out one of the most pleasing * 
traits of his character. Of the friends he is thus to leave, 
he merely refers to. those of the American legation, but 
dwells with regret on the farewell he must give to two lit- 
tle children, whom he calls his "fast friends." Like a 
sudden burst of sunlight on a landscape, this unconscious 
utterance reveals a heart as tender as it is strong, and in- 
creases our interest in the man quite as much as in the ex- 
plorer. At 3 o'clock he was thundering on toward Paris 
ready, as he said, to go to the battle or the banquet, all the 
same. His interview with Mr. Bennett reveals the char- 
acter of both these men so clearly that we give it in Stan- 
ley's own words : 

" At 3 P. M. I was on my way, and being obliged to stop 
at Bayonne a few hours, did not arrive at Paris until the 
following night. I went straight to the * Grand Hotel/ 
and knocked at the door of Mr. Bennett's room. 

" ^ Come in,' I heard a voice say. Entering, I found Mr. 
Bennett in bed. 

" * Who are you T he asked. 

** ^ My name is Stanley,' I answered. 



32 FIXD LIVINGSTOI^E. 



" ' All, yes, sit down ; I have important business on hand 
for you/ 

" After throwing over his shoulders his robe de chamhre^ 
Mr. Bennett asked : ' Where do you think Livingstone 
is?' 

" ' I really do not know, sir/ 

" * Do you think he is alive ?' 

" ' He may be, and he may not be,' I answered. 

'* ' Well, I think he is alive, and that he can be found, 
and I am going to send you to find him.' 

*^ ' What,' said I, ' do you really think I can find Dr. 
Livingstone ? Do you mean me to go to Central Africa ?' 

" ' Yes ; I mean that you shall go and find him, wherever 
you hear that he is, and get what news you can of him ; 
and, perhaps' — delivering himself thoughtfully and de- 
liberately — ' the old man may be in want. Take enough 
with you to help him, should he require it. Of course, 
you will act according to your own plans, and you will do 
what is best — but find Livingstone !' 

" Said I, wondering at the cool order of sending one to 
Central Africa to search for a man whom I, in common 
with most other men, believed to be dead : * Have you 
considered seriously the great expense you are liable to 
incur on account of this little journey ?' 

" * What will it cost V he asked, abruptly. 

" ' Burton and Speke's journey to Central Africa cost 
betweea £3,000 and £5,000, and I fear it cannot be done 
under £2,500.' 

" * Well, I will tell you what you will do. Draw a thou- 
sand pounds now, and when you have gone through that, 
draw another thousand, and when that is spent draw 
another thousand, and when you 'have finished that draw 
another thousand, and so on — ^but find Livingstone !' 

** Surprised, but not confused, at the order, for I knew 



INTERVIEW WITH MR. BENNETT. 



3J 



Cll, 

thr 
lett 



ijaguaa win ue Close on your way to maia ; su| >ose 



Iin^ERVIEW WITH MR. BENNETT. 3j 

that Mr. Bennett, when he had once made up his mind, 
was not easily drawn aside from h'm purpose, I yet 
thought, seeing it was such a gigantic scheme, that he had 
not quite considered in his own mind the pros and cons of 
the case, I said : * I have heard that should your father 
die you would sell tlie Herald, and retire from business.' 

" * Whoever told you so is W¥ong, for there is not money 
enough in the United States to buy the New York Herald, 
My father has made it a great paper, but I mean to make 
it a greater. I mean, that it shall be a newspaper in the 
true sense of the word ; I mean, that it shall publish what- 
ever news may be useful to the world, at no matter what 
cost.' 

" ^ After that,' said I, ' I have nothing more to say. J.)o 
you mean me to go straight on to Africa to search for I>r. 
Livingstone ?' 

" * No ; I wish you to go to the inauguration of the Suez 
Canal first, and then proceed up the Nile. I hear Baker 
is about starting for Upper Egypt. Find out what you can 
about his expedition, and, as you go up, describe, as well as 
possible, whatever is interesting for tourists, and then write 
up a guide — a practical one — for Lower Egypt; tell us 
about whatever is worth seeing, and how to see it. 

" ' Then you might as well go to Jerusalem ; I hear tliat 
Captain Warren is making some interesting discoveries 
there. Then visit Constantinojile, and find out about tJie 
khedive and the sultan. 

" ' Then — let me see — you might as well visit the Crimea 
and those old battle-grounds. Then go across the Cau- 
casus to the Caspian Sea, I hear there is a Bussian expe- 
dition bound for Khiva. From thence you may get 
through Persia to India; you could write an interesting 
letter from Persepolis. 

" * Bagdad will be close on your way to India ; su]_ >ose 



SG A FALSE CHARGE. 

YOU go tliere and write up something about the Euphrates 
Valley Railway. Then, when you have come to India, 
you may go after Dr Livingstone. Probably you will 
hear by that time that Livingstone is on his way to Zanzi- 
bar ; but, if not, go into the interior and find him, if alive. 
Get what news of his discoveries you can ; and if you find 
that he is dead, bring all .possible proofs you can of his 
being dead. That is all. Good-night, and God be with 
you.' 

" * Good-night, sir,' I said, * what is in the power of hu- 
man nature I will do ; and on such an errand as I go upon 
God will be with me.' 

*'I lodged with young Edward King, who is making such 
a name in New England. He was just the man who would 
have delighted to tell the journal he was engaged upon 
what young Mr. Bennett was doing, and what errand I was 
bound upon. I should have liked to exchange opinions with 
him u]3on the probable results of my journey, but dared not 
do so. Though oppressed with the great task before me, I 
had to appear as if only going to be present at the Suez 
Canal. Young King followed me to the express train 
bound for Marseilles, and at the station we parted — he to go 
and read the newspapers at Bowles's Eeading-room, I to 
Central Africa and — who knows? There is no need to 
recapitulate what I did before going to Central Africa." 

He started on his travels, and we hear of him first in 
Constantinople, from our minister there, Mr. Morris, who 
had relieved him and his companions when plundered by 
Turkish brigands. One of Mr. Stanley's traveling com- 
panions who had been robbed with himself, accused him of 
dishonesty in a published letter regarding the money our 
minister had advanced. It is not necessary to go into this 
accusation or a refutation of it now, it is sufficient to say 
that Mr. Morris declared the whole charge false, and as the 



STANLEY STAETS ON HIS TRAVELS. ol 

shortest and most complete refutation of such a charge, we 
give Mr. Morris's own views of Mr. Stanley: 

"The uncouth young man whom I first knew had giK>wn 
into a perfect man of tlie world, possessing the appearance, 
the manners and the attributes of a perfect gentleman. 
The story of the adventures which he had gone through 
and the dangers he had passed during his absence, were 
perfectly marvelous, and he became the lion of our little 
circle. Scarcely a day passed but he was a guest at my 
table, and no one was more welcome, for I insensibly grew 
to have a strong attachment for him myself In speaking 
further on of his projected travels, he said he advised 
him to go to Persia, which Stanley suddenly came to the 
conclusion to follow out. "He therefore,'' he says, "busied 
himself in procuring letters of introduction to the Russian 
authorities in Caucasus, in Georgia and in other countries 
through which he would have to pass." 

This is quite enough to put to rest the scandal, that at 
one time produced quite a sensation, that Stanley had 
cheated him and misappropriated the funds advanced by 
him. No explanations are required after this indorsement 
by Mr. Morris himself. 

Of this long and hazardous journey, the columns of the 
Herald gave all the principal details. There is nothing in 
them that illustrates the peculiar characteristics of Stanley 
any more or even so much as his subsequent acts, hence 
his brief summary of this tour, that seems to have had no 
definite object whatever, except to give the correspondent 
of the Herald something to do, until the proper moment 
to start on the expedition for Livingstone, is, perhaps, the 
best account that could be given, so far as the general 
reader is concerned. All we can say is, it seems a very 
roundabout way in which to commence such an expedition. 

"I went up the Nile and saw Mr. Higginbotham, chief 



88 A WELCOME EVERYWHERE. 

engineer in Baker's expedition, at Philee, and was the 
means of preventing a duel between him and a mad young 
Frenchman, who wanted to fis^ht Mr. His^o-inbotham w^ith 
pistols, because Mr. Higginbotham resented the idea of 
being taken for an Egyptian through wearing a fez cap. 
I had a talk with Captain Warren at Jerusalem, and 
descended one of the j)its with a sergeant of engineers to 
see the marks of Tyrian workmen on the foundation-stones 
of the Temple of Solomon. I visited the mosques of Stam- 
boul with the minister resident of the United States, and 
the American consul general. I traveled over the Cri- 
mean battle-grounds with Kinglake's glorious books for 
reference. I dined with the widow of General Liprandi, 
at Odessa. I saw the Arabian traveler, Palgrave, at Trebi- 
zond, and Baron Nicolay, the civil governor of the Cau- 
casus, at Tiflis. I lived with the Bussian embassador 
w^hile at Teheran, and wherever I went through Persia T 
received the most hospitable welcome from the gentlemen 
of the Indo-European Telegra23h Company ; and following 
the example of many illustrious men, I wrote my nam.e 
upon one of the Persepolitan monuments. In the month 
of August, 1870, I arrived in India." 

In comj^leting this sketch of Mr. Stanley's character, it 
is necessary only to add that his after career fully justified 
the high estimate Mr. Bennett placed on his extraordinary 
qualities. These w^ere tested to their utmost extent in his 
2:)ersistent, determined search after the man he was sent to 
find. But w^e believe that Livingstone, when found, with 
whom Stanley passed some months, exerted a powerful in- 
fluence on the character which we have attempted to portray. 
Stanley was comparatively young, full of life and ambition, 
with fame, greater probably than he had ever anticij)ated, 
now within his reach. Yet, here in the heart of Africa, he 
found a man well on in years, of a w.orld-wide fame, yet 



SUMMARY OF STANLEY'S EASTERN TOUK. 39 

apparently indifferent to it. This man who had spent his 
life in a savage country, away from home and all the 
pleasures of civilized society, who expected to pass the 
remnant of his days in the same isolated state, was looking 
beyond this life. He was forgetting himself, in the absorb- 
ing purpose to benefit others. Fame to him was nothing, 
the welfare of a benighted race everything. This w^as a 
new revelation to the ambitious young man. Hitherto he 
had thought only of himself, but here was a man, earnest, 
thoughtful, sincere, who w^as living to carry out a great 
idea — no less than the salvation of a continent — nay more 
than this, who was working not for himself, but for a Master, 
Qjud that Master, the God of the universe. He remained 
with him in close companionship for months, and intimate 
relations wdth a man borne up by such a lofty purpose, 
inspired by such noble feelings, and looking so far away 
beyond time for his reward, could not but have an important 
influence on a man with Stanley's noble and heroic qualities. 
It was a new revelation to him. He had met, not a successful, 
bold explorer, but a Christian, impelled and sustained by the 
great and noble idea of regenerating a race and honoring 
the God of man and the earth. We say such a lengthened 
•companionship w^ith a ma^i of this character could not but 
lift him on to a higher plane, and inspire him with a loftier 
purpose than that of a mere explorer. 

But while this expedition brought out all the j)eculiar 
traits we have spoken of, his last expedition developed quali- 
ties which circumstances as yet, had not yet exhibited. 
When he emerged on the Atlantic coast with his company 
he was hailed with acclamations, and a British vessel was 
placed at his disposal in which to return home. But the 
ease and comfort offered him, and the applause awaiting him 
were nothing compared with the comfort and welcome of 
the savage band that had for so long a time been his com- 



40 PHARISAICAL PHILANTHROPY. 

panions and Lis only reliance in the perils through which 
he had passed. True, they had often been intractible, dis- 
obedient and trustless, but still they had been his com- 
panions in one of the most perilous marches ever attempted 
by man, and with that large charity that allowed for the 
conduct of these untutored, selfish animals of the desert, he 
forgot it all, and would do nothing, think of nothing, till 
their wants were supplied and their welfare secured. He 
would see them safe back to the spot from which he took 
them, and did, before he took care of himself. A noble 
nature there asserted itself, and we doubt not that every 
one of those ignorant, poor savages would go to the death 
for that brave man to whom their own welfare was so 
dear. 

In this sketch of Mr. Stanley, as it appears to us from 
the record of his life, we have omitted to notice those faults 
which are incident to poor human nature, in whatever jDer- 
son it is enshrined. But perhaps this is as good a place as 
any to notice the charge brought against him by some per- 
sons in the English press, of having killed natives, not in 
self-defense but to carry out his explorations, asserting that 
neither for fame nor science or any other motive had a man 
a right to take the life of his fellow-man. Without going' 
into an argument on this point, or bringing forward the 
circumstances of this particular case, leaving that to be 
explained in the narrative, as it will appear in subsequent 
pages, we wish simply to say that the philanthropy and 
Christianity, in behalf of which the charge is made, is pure 
Pharisaism. Those writers asserted that life should be taken 
only in self-defense. But it is right, from mere covetous- 
nesss to seize territory in India, and thus provoke the right- 
ful owners to rise in defense of their own, which act converts 
them into assailants, that must be killed in self-defense. 
But a man having passed through friendly territory sud- 



ENGLISH CHARGE OF CRUELTY REFUTED. 41 

denly finds himself stopped by hostile savages, who declare 
that he must retrace his three months' journey and turn 
back, not because they are to be despoiled of their land, or 
wronged in their persons, but from mere savage blood- 
thirstiness and hate. Mr. Stanley quietly insists on con- 
tinuing his journey, desiring no conflict, but finding them 
determined to kill him and break up his expedition, he 
anticipates their movements and shoots down some of them, 
and lo, these writers who defend the slaughter of tens of 
thousands of men in India, so that England may enjoy her 
wholesale robbery, nay, threaten Europe with bloody war 
at the mere hint that others may want to share her unjust 
possessions, call on the English people to refuse to give 
Stanley a public reception because he killed a half dozen 
savages who wanted to kill him. He should have waited, 
they say, till they fired the first shot ; as he did not, his 
conduct should be investigated by the philanthropic subjects 
of Her Majesty the Queen. 

From this brief sketch of Mr. Stanley's career and 
character, one might, without presum]3tion, predict that 
what he had done for Africa, great as it is, may be only the 
beginning of what he proposes to do. 

The mantle of Livingstone may fall upon his shoulders, 
and the ambition of the explorer' give way to the higher 
impulse of redeeming this benighted country, and these 
two names become as closely linked with the civilized. 
Christianized Africa of the future, as that of Columbus with 
America. Having laid open to the world the great work 
to be done there, let us hope he will be the great leader in 
performing it. 



CHAPTEE II. 

"the dark continent"— description of it— difficulties of exploring it— hatred Of 

WHITE MEN— the FIRST REAL ENCROACHMENT MADE BY A MISSIONARY— DESCRIi»TION OV 
THE PORTION TO BE EXPLORED— ITS ARTICLES OP COMMERCE— ITS FUTURE DESTINY. 

ALL there was of civilization in the world was found 
at one time in Africa. Art and science had their 
home there, while now it is the most benighted and bar- 
barous j)ortion of the earth and is, not inaptly, called "the 
dark continent." With a breadth at the equator of four 
thousand five hundred miles, with the exception of thin lines 
of sea-coast on each side, this vast space was as much unknown 
as the surface of a distant planet. The Barbary States and 
Egypt, on the Mediterranean and Red Seas, some Portuguese 
settlements on the Indian Ocean, the English and Dutch 
colonies of South Africa, a few trading ports and the English 
and American colonies in Guinea, constituted Africa, so far 
as the knowledge of the civilized world went. And yet 
beyond these outer rims lay real Africa, and there lived its 
vast population. That it was fertile was well-known, for 
out of its mysterious bosom flowed magnificent rivers, 
the Congo being ten miles wide at its mouth. That it con- 
tained a mighty population was equally apparent, for in 
two centuries it yielded forty millions of slaves, which were 
distributed over the world. Slave hunters here and there 
pierced a little way into this unknown region, and faint 
echoes came now and then out of this vast solitude, but 
they were echoes only, and Africa rested amid the conti- 
nents a mystery and a riddle that seemed likely never to 

42 



OBSTACLES TO EXPLORATION. 



43 



be solved. The vast Desert of Sahara on the north, 
stretching down to the equator, presented ah impenetra- 
ble barrier to explorers entering from that direction, 
while along the eastern and western coasts they were 
beaten back by savage tribes or fell victims to the diseases 
of the country. Matted forests, wild beasts and venomous 
reptiles were added to the other obstacles that beset their 
path, so that only now and then an adventurous explorer 
got beyond the outer rim of the continent. 

The Nile, piercing to the equator, seemed the most natu- 
ral avenue by which to enter this region, but the slave 
hunters by their cruelty, and the petty wars they had en- 
gendered among the various tribes, made the presence of 
a white man in their midst the occasion of hostile demon- 
strations. The lofty mountains and broad rivers that came 
out of this vast unknown region added to the mysterious 
interest that enveloped it. Though certain death awaited 
the daring traveler who endeavored to penetrate far into 
the interior, fresh victims were found ready to peril their 
lives in the effort* to solve the mystery of Central Africa. 
The path of these travelers, when traced on the map, ap- 
pears like mere punctures of the great continent. Mission- 
ary effort could only effect a lodgment along the coast, 
while colonies remained stationary on the spot where they 
were first planted. 

Although holding the entire southern portion, the Eng- 
lish colony could make but little headway against the 
tribes that confronted them on the north. The most ad- 
venturous men urged not by curiosity or desire of knowl- 
edge, but cupidity, penetrated the farthest into the interior, 
but, instead of throwing light on those dark places, they 
made them seem more dark and terrible by the miserable 
naked and half-starved wretches they brought out to civ- 
ilization, to become more wretched still by the \ife of 
slavery to which they were doomed. 



44 AN EFFECTUAL BAR TO ENTERPRISE. 

Hence it could not be otherwise than that the name of 
white man should be associated with everything revolting 
and cruel, and that his presence among these wild barbarians 
should awaken feelings of vengeance. A white man, to 
those inland tribes, represented wrong and cruelty alone. 
The very word meant separation of wives, and husbands, 
and families, and carried away to a doom whose mystery 
only enhanced the actual horrors that really awaited them. 
Hence the white man's rapacity and cruelty put an effectual 
bar to his curiosity and enterprise. The love of knowledge 
and physical science was thwarted by the love of sin and 
wrong, and the civilized world, instead of wondering at the 
ignorance and barbarity that kept back all research and all 
benevolent effort, should wonder that any one bearing the 
slightest relationship to the so-called outside civilized world, 
should have been allowed to exist for a day where these 
wronged, outraged savages bore sway. 

It is not a little singular that the first real encroachment 
on these forbidden regions was not made by daring ex- 
plorers either for adventure or geographical knowledge, or 
to extend commerce, but by a poor missionary, whose sole 
object was to get the Gospel introduced among these un- 
counted millions of heathen. Livingstone broke the spell 
that hung over tropical Africa, and set on foot movements 
that are to work a change in the continent more important 
and momentous than the imagination of man can at j)resent 
conceive. 

But, before entering on the explorations of the last thirty 
years, which are destined to w^ork such a change in the 
future history of Africa, we wish to give a clear, definite 
idea of the region embraced in these explorations, and 
which is yet but partially unveiled, and on the develo]3- 
ment and management of which the future of Africa turns. 
The names used by these explorers are not, for the most 



EXTENT OF TKOPICAL AFKICA. 45 

part, found on our maps, and hence the reader is left very 
much in the dark respecting the territory over which he is 
carried by the explorer. We endeavored, a little farther 
back, to .give a general idea of the map of Africa, as show- 
ing its partially civilized and barbarous portions, as well as 
the known and unknown parts of the continent. AVe will 
not give the more scientific divisions, such as the littoral, 
the lacustrine, the great basins and different plateaus and 
mountain districts, but would say that it is the tropical 
regions of Africa that give birth to its largest rivers — is 
covered by its most magnificent forests- — is crossed by its 
loftiest mountains, and where dwell its teeming millions. 
And this is the unknown jDart of the continent and the 
central point toward which all explorers press. 

This tropical Africa extends from about ten degrees above 
to ten degrees below the equator, and from ten to thirty-five 
east longitude ,in or round numbers, nearly a thousand 
miles above and below the equator, to two thousand or 
more east and west between these parallels of latitudes. 
With an ordinary map before him, and with Zanzibar on 
the east and Congo on the west, as great landmarks, the 
reader will get a very clear idea of the ground aimed at 
and touched, or pierced and crossed by recent explorers, 
and the thorough final explorations of which will unlock 
not only the hidden mystery of Africa, but open all there 
is of interest to both the Christian and <^ommercial world. 
That to the former there is a field to be occupied that will 
tax the self-sacrifice and benevolence of the Christian 
world, there can be no doubt; while to the commercial 
world a field of equal magnitude and importance will be 
laid open. From the mere punctures into the borders of 
this unknown land, and the two slight trails recently made 
across it, there is no doubt that from sixty to one hundred 
millions of men are here living in the lowest and most de- 



4 J A KEW KOUTE DISCOVERED. 

graded condition of heathenism, while the country is bur^ 
dened with those articles which the commercial world need, 
and can make of vast benefit to man. 

A glance at the map will reveal what a vast territory 
remains to be explored and what a mighty population 
exists there, and yet to come into contact with the civilized 
world. It is probable that that unex,plored region between 
the equator and the great Desert of Sahara will reveal 
greater wonders than have yet been discovered. 

It is a little strange that the enterprise and the curiosity 
of man should urge him to make repeated costly and vain 
attempts to reach the north pole, where there are neither 
inhabitants nor articles of commerce, while one of the 
largest continents on our globe, crowded with people and 
rich in the very products' needed by man, should be al- 
lowed to remain so long a sealed book. 

Previous to Livingstone, most of the expeditions having 
Central Africa for their objective point, made the Nile 
their guide. Mungo Park went up the Niger, on the west 
coast, in the beginning of the present century, and some 
twenty years later Denham and Clapperton started from 
Tripoli and, crossing the Great Desert, reached Lake 
Tschad, nearly a thousand miles north of the equator, and 
worked west to the Niger, and so to the coast of Guinea. 
Other explorers have visited this region, comprising the 
central part of Northern Africa, but the equatorial region 
was sought by following up the Nile. The western coast 
had been the scene of so much cruelty by slave traders, 
that the powerful tribes in the interior were so hostile to 
white men that they would not allow them to enter their 
country. It was left to Dr. Livingstone to discover a new 
route to tropical Africa and make an entering wedge that 
is likely to force open the whole country. 

What little has been traversed reveals untold wealth 



WEALTH OF AFKICA. 47 

waiting the enterprising hand of commerce to bring forth 
to civilization. A partial list of the products of this rich 
country will show what a mine of wealth it is destined to 
be: sugar-cane, cotton, coffee, oil palm, tobacco, Spices, 
timber, rice, wheat, Indian corn, India rubber, copal, hemp, 
ivory, iron, copper, silver, gold and various other articles 
of commerce are found here, and some of them in the 
greatest profusion. 

Thus it will be seen that this vast continent, which from 
creation seemed destined only to be the abode of wild 
beasts and reptiles, and man as wild and savage as the 
animals amid which he dwelt, and when brought into con- 
tact with civilization to become more debased, if possible, 
by the bondage in which he was kept, contains almost 
everything that civilization needs, and in the future, which 
now seems near, will be traversed by railroads and steam- 
boats, and the solitudes that have echoed for thousands of 
years to the howl of wild beasts, and yells of equally wild 
men, will resound with the hum of peaceful industry and the 
rush and roar of commerce. The miserable hut will give way 
to commodious habitations, and the disgusting rites of 
heathenism to the worship of the true God. Eeaching to 
the temperate zones, north and south, it presents every 
variety of climate and yields every variety of vegetation. 
What effect the great revolution awaiting this continent 
will have on the destiny of the world, none can tell. But 
he would be considered a mad prophet who would predict 
one-half of the changes that the discovery of the Ameri- 
can continent, less th^n four hundred years ago, has 
wrought. That the Creator of these continents of the 
earth had some design in letting this, nearly, fourth part 
of our planet remain in darkness and mystery and savage 
debasement till now, and then, by the effort of one poor 
missionary, cause it to be thrown open to the world, none 
can doubt. 



CHAPTER m. 



•TJTLiNEs OP Livingstone's explokations during a pekiod of nearly thirty years— niisfr 

EXPLORATION — CROSSES THE CONTINENT FROM WEST TO EAST— HIS SECOND EXPEDITION— THE 
LAST— HIS SUPPOSED DEATH— SYMPATHY FOR HIM— INDIFFERENCE OF THE BRITISH GOVERN- 
MENT TO HIS FATE- BENNETT'S BOLD RESOLUTION TO*SEND STANLEY AFTER HIM. 



WE do not design to give an account of the many ex- 
plorations of Africa, from Mungo Park down, which 
have been made to gratify curiosity, or the spirit of adven- 
ture, or for fame, or even in the interest of science, or to 
increase our geographical knowledge, but confine ourselves 
to those only which have had for their great end the 
destruction of the slave trade and the regeneration of 
Africa. As Livingstone originated this philanthropic 
spirit, and lifted the expeditions to explore Central Africa 
to a higher j)lane than they had ever before occupied, till 
finally they became national, and hence have assumed an 
importance tbey • never before possessed, it is not only 
proper, but necessary to a full understanding of these ex- 
plorations, that a brief account or outline of his Herculean 
labors should be given. 

He was born in 1815, so that if alive now would be near 
his threescore and ten. Educated as a physician and de- 
signing, originally, to make this profession an entering 
wedge to his career as a missionary in China, he having 
changed his purpose, embarked at the age of twenty-five 
as a missionary to South Africa, intending to spend his life 
among the wild tribes that bordered on the English settle- 
ments there. This very simple and by no means extraor* 

48 



Livingstone's commencement. 49 

dinary step fixed his destiny, and, to all human appearances, 
has changed the destiny of Africa; and though he is dead, 
the rnovement he started will go on widening and deepen- 
ing, controlling the fate of millions, till time shall end. 
He located himself among a tribe in the Baknona country^ 
over which a noted and able chieftain named Sechele ruled 
w^itli arbitrary power. For nine years he labored and ex- 
plored in this section of the country, learning the various 
dialects and customs and manners of the people, and thus 
preparing himself unconsciously for the greater work 
before him. 

Nine years after, he went to Cape Town and entered on 
his missionary labors. It must be borne in mind that, 
though at this time, the tribes that Livingstone visited and 
dwelt among were strangers to w^hite men, yet they had 
little of the hatred of the stranger that characterized the 
tribes of Central Africa. They had never been so heavily 
cursed by the slave hunter or trader, and hence had less 
occasion for animosity and suspicion. The missionary, 
with his wife and children, trusted themselves fearlessly to 
the generosity of these savage chiefs, many of whom in 
intelligence, sagacity and magnanimity, resembled Red 
Jacket, Tecumseh and others among our Indian tribes. 
They were received with distinguished hospitality and 
treated with royal generosity. 

About this time his explorations of the African conti- 
nent began. Two travelers having arrived at his station, 
he started with them to visit Lake Ngami, a sheet of w^ater 
between one and two hundred miles in circumference, that 
had never before been visited by a white man. They set out 
on the 1st of June, and arrived on its solitary shores on the 
1st of August, having been two months on the route, and 
everywhere treated with kindness. His chief object in visit- 
irig the lake was to see a great chief, Lekeletu, who was said 



50 IN SIGHT OF INONGO. 

to live some hundred and fifty miles beyond it. Livingstone 
was received and entertained by liim cordially. Consulting 
with this able and generous chief, Livingstone determined 
to push west to the coast, and in November, 1853, the two, 
with quite a train and numerous guides, set out, and, thanks 
to the precautions and orders of Sekeletu, were received 
by the various tribes through which they passed with great 
hospitality. For three months he toiled onward across 
'rivers and through swamps, his only companions being 
wild barJbarians, who, notwithstanding their idolatrous 
worship and heathenish rites, treated this solitary white 
man, who had put himself completely in their power, as 
an honored guest. The Inongo Valley, on which he now 
entered, was under the sway of the Portuguese, though 
several hundred miles from the Atlantic. The scenery 
through which he had passed had been tame and uninter- 
esting, with nothing to alleviate the monotony of the way 
but the curious customs and wild antics of the savages 
through whose territory he passed. But he was filled with 
rapture when he came in sight of Inongo, lying in a beauti- 
ful valley below him. He thus describes it: 

''It is about one hundred miles broad, clothed with dark 
forest, except where the light green grass covers meadow- 
lands on the Inongo River, which here and there glances 
in the sun as it wends its way to the north. The opposite 
side of this great valley appears like a range of lofty 
mountains, and the descent into it about a mile, which, 
measured perpendicularly, may be from one thousand to 
twelve hundred feet. Emerging from the gloomy forest of 
Loanda, this magnificent prospect made us all feel as if a 
weight had been lifted from our eyelids. A cloud was 
passing across the middle of the valley, from which rolling 
thunder pealed, while above all was glorious sunlight. It 
tvas one of those scenes which, from its unexpectedness 



A LOVELY VALLEY. 51 

and great contrast to all that has gone before, makes it 
seem more like a vision than a reality, ahd one wonders 
that so much beauty and loveliness were created only for 
wild beasts or wilder men to gaze upon." 

He reached Loanda in April, having i^ade the journey 
to the coast from the Mokololo district in four months. 
He now took the bold determination to cross the continent, 
from west to east. It must be remembered that this daring 
expedition was undertaken nearly a quarter of a century ago, 
without the companionship of a single white man. * It is true, 
he crossed the southern portion of Africa, yet he started 
some two hundred miles north of where Cameron recently 
came out. Instead of working northerly, his course lay 
somewhat to the south-east. For a year he was now locked 
up in these unknown wilds, and reaching the water-shed of 
the continent, he discovered the Zambezi, in the heart of 
Africa, and traced it down to its mouth. The results of 
this remarkable expedition have been long given to the 
world. But it will be seen at a glance that this formed, as 
it were, a base line for all his future explorations, and gave 
that impetus to explorations of the continent which are fast 
laying it open to the civilized world. 

This brief summary gives a very inadequate idea of Mr. 
X/ivingstone's labors in Africa up to this time. He had 
now been sixteen years among its wild tribes, acting as 
missionary, statesman and scientific explorer. He had 
wrought marvelous changes among them, and started them 
forward toward civilization. 

He now returned to England, reaching there on the 12th 
of December, where the story of his wonderful career was 
received with great admiration by people of every class. 
He published an extended account of his work and explor- 
ations in Africa, which was warmly received on both sides 
of the Atlantic. 



52 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE AROUSED. 

Having fairly launclied his book in the world, he now 
determined to rfeturn to Africa, but not, as before, alone^ 
He did not go out as a missionary, but as consul to Killi- 
mane, with the understanding that his duties were in no 
way to conflict ^^ith his explorations. We do not design 
to give an account of the second expedition, which, among 
other things, before it ended, shed new light on the sources 
of the Nile and the waters that flow east into the Indian 
Ocean. 

He left in 1858, and 'was gone some four years. He 
then returned to England. In the meantime, stimulated 
by his success and fame, several expeditions started up the 
Nile, by which the vast lake, or, as it might be termed, inland 
sea system around and beyond the head waters of the Nile 
was brought to light, as well as all the diabolical cruelties of 
the slave trade, which was carried on by Egypt and the 
Portuguese settlements on the east coast of Africa. Living- 
stone, by his vivid descriptions of its horrors, and loud and 
righteous outcry against it, had aroused the English people, 
and created such a public sentiment that the English gov- 
ernment felt compelled to move in the matter; so that while 
Livingstone was preparing for a third expedition, or rather 
continuing this last, which had only been intermitted (for 
his researches up the Zambezi and E-averna Rivers were 
preparatory to his great undertaking to explore the sources 
of the Nile and the great lake region, near which he was 
to die), a movement was on foot to suppress the slave trade 
in Africa. England and the United States having declared 
it piracy, and kept their cruisers on the west coast of Africa, 
had effectually suppressed it there. If, therefore, it could be 
suppressed by way of Egypt, the Portuguese settlements 
alone on the east coast could carry it on, and hence its 
doom be sealed, and this curse of centuries to Africa be 
ended. There was but one way to do this, to enlist the 



LIVINGSTONE REPORTED DEAD. 53 

sympathies, or at least secure the co-operation of the 
khedive of Egypt in the great undertaking. No matter 
whether his claims were founded in justice or not, no one 
had a better one to the vast unknown regions of tropical 
Africa than he. Certainly no one had the power to enforce 
that claim as well as he. 

The khedive is the most intelligent ruler that Egypt 
ever had, of liberal principles, and in sympathy with all 
the great improvements going on in the civilized world. 
Though the plan was obnoxious to a great portion of his sub- 
jects who lived by the slave trade, he at once entered into it 
and agreed to stop, with her assistance, the traffic in human 
beings throughout his kingdom. Livingstone at the time was 
not where he could hear of this first great result of his expo- 
sure of the iniquities of the slave trade in Africa. He was 
swallowed up in the wilds of that continent ; in fact, was 
by most men supposed to be dead, and his body moulde;ring, 
unburied, on the field of his last great exploration. He 
liad been three years absent from England. Determimid 
to explore the great water-shed of Central Africa, he had 
sailed for Zanzibar in August, 1865, and thence, in March 
of the next year, with a small band, composed of Sepoys 
and others, left that island, and in the last of the month 
struck inland, proceeding by the River E-ohenna. He was 
heard from, from time to time, until at last the leader of 
bis Johanna men, arrived at Zanzibar and reported that he 
had been killed almost at the outset of his journey. The 
particulars of his death were related with great minuteness 
of detail — how the fight commenced, and that after Living- 
stone had shot two of the natives, he was struck from behind 
and shot dead. The news was received with feelings of 
gloom and sorrow throughout the civilized world. This 
brave, true-hearted Christian man, whom all the native 
chiefs who knew him had learned to love, had at last fallen 



54 ANOTHER FALSE RUMOR. 

by the hand of those he came to benefit. But at length 
there came letters from him, dated far in advance of the 
place where it was said he was murdered. Time passed on^ 
and at long intervals faint echoes came out of the African, 
solitudes, of a white man toiling all alone in those desolate 
regions. At length came another report that the news of 
Livingstone's previous death was false, for he had recently 
been killed. But the former false rumor caused this to be 
discredited, and sympathy was again aroused for this 
undaunted solitary Englishman, and wonder was expressed 
that his government would do nothing to relieve him. At 
length, Mr. Bennett, of the Herald, determined, at his own 
expense, to find this daring explorer if he was alive, and if 
dead, bring his bones out to his friends. He fitted out, as 
we have seen, an expedition at the cost of $25,000, and 
placed Stanley at its head, second only to Livingstone for 
daring, perseverance and an indomitable will. At first he 
inclined to ascend the Nile and push forward in the direc- 
tion toward which it was known that Livingstone had de- 
termined to push his researches, but finding that Baker was 
to move in that direction, he at last decided to proceed to 
Zanzibar, and taking the direction in which Livingstone 
had gone, three years before, follow him up till he found 
him or the spot where he died, or was killed. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WANLEY'S search yOR LIVINGSTONE— LANDS AT ZANZIBAR— ORGANIZES HIS EXPEDITION— THE 
START— STANLEY'S FEELINGS— THE MARCH— ITS DIFFICULTIES— MEN SICK— DELAYS— MEETING 
WITH A CHIEF— DIALOGUE ON THE BURIAL OP A HORSE — LOSS OF HIS BAY HORSE— SICKNESS 
AND DESERTION— TERRIBLE TRAVELING — A HOSPITABLE CHIEF— A GANG OF SLAVES— AFRICAN 
BELLES— A LUDICROUS SPECTACLE— A QUEER SUPERSTITION— PUNISHMENT OP A DESERTER— A 
LUDICROUS CONTRAST — A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY — NEWS FROM LIVINGSTONE— A WALLED TOWN — 
STANLEY ATTACKED WITH FEVER. 

WE have seen in a former chapter how suddenly Mr. 
Stanley was recalled from Spain, to take charge of 
an expedition to go in search of Livingstone — how he was 
sent to see Baker, who was about to go in toward him from 
the north, and how he was sent east first. But the time 
came at last to enter upon his work in earnest, and he sailed 
from Bombay, on the 12th of October, for Zanzibar. 

On board the barque was a Scotchman, named Farquhar, 
acting as first mate. Taking a fancy to him, he engaged 
him to accompany him on his expedition to find Living- 
stone. 

Nearly three months later, on the 6th of January, ne 
landed at Zanzibar, one of the most fruitful islands of the 
Indian Ocean, rejoicing in a soltan of its own. It is the 
great mart to which come the ivory, gum, copal, hides, etc., 
and the slaves of the interior.. Stanley immediately set 
about preparing for his expedition. The first thing to 
decide upon, was : 

" How much money is required ? 

" How many pigeons as carriers ? 

4 55 



t>G GOODS THE ONLY COIN. 

" How many soldiers ? 

^' How much cloth ? 

*' How many beads ? 

^* How much wire ? 

"What kinds of cloth is required for the different 
tribes V 

After trying to figure this out by himself, from the books 
of other travelers, he decided to consult an Arab merchant, 
who had fitted out several caravans for the interior. In a 
very short time he obtained more information than he had 
acquired from books in his long three months' voyage from 
India. 

Money is of no use in the heart of Africa. Goods of 
various kinds are the only coin that can purchase what 
the traveler needs, or pay the tribute that is exacted by the 
various tribes. He found that forty yards of cloth would 
keep one hundred men supplied with food per day. Thus, 
three thousand six hundred and fifty yards of three differ- 
ent kinds of cloths would support one hundred men twelve 
months. Next to cloths, beads were the best currency of 
the interior. Of these he purchased twenty sacks of eleven 
varieties in color and shape. Next came the brass wire, 
of which, he j)urchased three hundred and fifty pounds, of 
about the thickness of telegraph wire. Next came the 
provisions and outfit of implements that would be needed — 
medicines, and arms, and donkeys, and, last of all, men. 

A man by the name of Shaw, a native of England, who 
came there as third mate of an American ship, from which 
he was discharged, applied for work, and was engaged by 
Stanley in getting what he needed together, and to accom- 
pany him on his expedition. He agreed to give him $300 
per annum, and placed him next in rank to Farquhar. He 
then cast about for an escort of twenty men. Five who 
kad accompanied Speke, and were called " Speke's Faith- 



Stanley's equipment completed. 59 

fills," among whom, as a leader, was a man named Bombay, 
were first engaged. He soon got together eighteen more 
men, as soldiers, who were to receive $3 a month. Each 
was to have a flint-lock musket, and be provided with two 
hundred rounds of ammunition. Bombay was to receive 
$80 a year, and the other five faithfuls $40. 

Knowing that he was to enter, and, perhaps, cross a 
region of vast inland lakes, much delay and travel might 
be avoided by a large boat, and so he purchased one and 
stripped it of all its covering, to make the transportation 
easier. He also had a cart constructed to fit the goat-paths 
of the interior and to aid in transportation. 

When all his purchases were completed and collected 
together, he found that the combined weight would be 
about six tons. His cart and twenty donkeys would not 
suffice for this, and so, the last thing of all, was to procure 
carriers, or pagosi, as they were called. He himself was 
presented with a blooded bay horse by an American mer- 
chant, at Zanzibar, named Gordhue, formerly of Salem. 

On the 4th of February, or twenty-eight days from his 
arrival at Zanzibar, Mr. Stanley's equipment was com- 
pleted, and he set sail for Bagomayo, twenty-five miles dis- 
tant on the mainland — from which all the caravans started 
for the interior, and where he was to hire his one hundred 
and forty or more pogasis or carriers. He was immedi- 
ately surrounded with men who attempted in every way to 
fleece him, and he was harassed, and betrayed, and hin- 
dered on every side. But, at length, all difficulties were 
overcome — the goods packed in bales weighing seventy-twc 
pounds — the force divided into ^ye caravans, and in six 
weeks after he entered Bagomayo he was ready to start. 
The first caravan had departed February 18th ; the second, 
February 21st ; the third, February 25th ; the fourth, on 
March 11th, and the last on March 21st. All told, the 



60 STARTING IN HIGH SPIRITS. 

number comjorised, in all the caravans connected with tho 
*' Herald Expedition/' one hundred and ninety. 

It was just seventy-three days after Stanley landed at 
Zanzibar, that ho passed out of Bagomayo, with his last 
caravan, on his bay horse, accompanied by twenty-eight 
carriers and twelve soldiers, under Bombay, while his Arab 
boy, Selim, the interpreter, had charge of the cart and its 
load. 

Out through a narrow lane, shaded by trees, they passed, 
the American flag flying in front, and all in the highest 
spirits. Stanley had left behind him the quarreling, 
cheating Arabs, and all his troubles with them. The sun 
^speeding to the west, was beckoning him on ; his heart 
beat high with hope and ambition ; he had taken a new 
departure in life, and with success would come the renown 
he so ardently desired. He says, "loveliness glowed 
around me ; I saw fertile fields, rich vegetation, strange 
trees; I heard the cry of cricket and pewit, and jubi- 
lant sounds of many insects, all of which seemed to tell 
me, 'you are started.' What could I do but lift up my 
face toward the pure, glowing sky, and cry, * God be 
thanked?'" 

The first camp was three miles and a half distant. The 
next three days were employed in completing the prepara- 
tions for the long land journey and for meeting the 
Masike, now very near, and on the 4th, a start was made 
for Unyanyembe, the great half-way house, which he re- 
solved to reach in three months. 

The road was a mere foot-path, leading through fields 
in which naked women were at work, who looked up and 
laughed and giggled as they passed. Passing on, they en- 
tered an open forest, abounding in deer and antelope. 
Beaching the turbid Kingemi, a bridge of felled trees was 
«oon made; Stanley, in the meantime amusing himself 



I 



THREE MEN IN TERROR. Gl 

with shooting hippopotami, or rather shooting at them, for 
his small bullets made no more impression on their thick 
skulls than peas would have done. Crossing to the oppo- 
site shore, he found the traveling better. They arrived at 
Kikoka, a distance of but ten miles, at 5 o'clock in the 
afternoon, having been compelled to unload the animals 
during the day, to cross the river and mud pools. This 
was slow marching, and at this rate of speed it would take 
a long time to reach the heart of Africa. The settlement 
was a collection of rude huts. Though bound to the same 
point that Speke and Burton had reached, Ujiji, Stanley took 
a different route from them, and one never traveled by a 
white man before. On the 27th, he left this place and 
moved westward, over a rolling, monotonous country, until 
they came to -Kosako, the province of Ukwee. Just before 
his departure the next morning, Magonga, the leader of 
the fourth caravan, came up and told him that three of 
his carriers were sick, and asked for some medicine. He 
found the three men in great terror, believing they were 
about to die, and crying out like children, " Mama, mama.'' 
Leaving them, with orders to hurry on as soon as possible, 
he departed. The country everywhere was in a state of na- 
ture except in the neighborhood of villages. Sheltered by 
the dense forests, he toiled on, but was so anxious about the 
fourth caravan left behind that, after marching nine miles, 
he ordered a halt and made a camp. It soon swarmed 
with insects, and he set to work to examine them and see 
if they were the tsetse, said to be fatal to horses in Africa. 
Still waiting for the caravan, he went hunting, but soon 
found himself in such an impenetrable jungle and swamp, 
filled with alligators, that he resolved never to make the 
attempt again. The second and third days passing with- 
out the arrival of the caravan, he sent Shaw and Bombay 
back after it, who brougTit it up on the fourth day. 



62 A TERRIBLE COMMOTION. 

Leaving it to rest in his own camp, he pushed on five 
miles to the village of Kingaru, set in a deep, damp, pes- 
tiferous-looking hollow, surrounded by pools of water. To 
add to the gloominess of the scene, a pouring rain set in, 
which soon filled their camping-place with lakelets and 
rivulets of water. Toward evening the rain ceased, and 
the villagers began to pour in with their vendibles. Fore- 
most was the chief, bringing with him three measures of 
matama and a half a measure of rice, which he begged 
Stanley to accept. The latter saw through the trickery of 
this meagre present, in offering which the chief called him 
the "rich sultan.'' Stanley asked him why, if he was a rich 
sultan, the chief of Kingaru did not bring him a rich pre- 
sent, that he might give him a rich one in return. "Ah," 
replied the blear-eyed old fox, " Kingaru is poor, there is 
no matama in the village." "Well," said Stanley, "if 
there is no matama in the village, I can give but a yard of 
cloth," which would be equivalent to his present. Foiled 
in his sharp practice the chief had to be content with 
this. 

On the 1st of April, he lost his gray horse. The burial 
of the carcass, not far from the encampment, raised a ter- 
rible commotion in the village, and the inhabitants assem- 
bled in consultation as to how much they must charge him 
for burying a horse in their village without permission, and 
soon the wrinkled old chief was also at the camp, and the 
following dialogue took place, which is given as an illus- 
tration of the character of the people with whom he was 
to have a year's trading intercourse : 

White Man — "Are you the great chief of Kingaru?" 

Kingaru — " Huh-uh — yes." 

W. M.— "The great, great chief?" 

Kingarv — " Huh-uh — yes." 

W. M. — How many soldiers have you ?" 



THE DIFFICULTY SETTLED. 63 

Kingaru— "Why?" 

W. M. — "How many fighting men have you?" 

Kingaru — " None." 

W. M. — " Oh ! I thought you might have a thousand 
men with you, by your going to fine a strong white man 
who has plenty of guns and soldiers two doti for burying 
a dead horse." 

Kingaru (rather perplexed) — "No; I have no soldiers. 
I have only a few young men." 

W. M. — "Why do you come and make trouble, then?" 

Kingaru — "It was not I; it was my brothers who said 
to me, ' Come here, come here, Kingaru, see what the white 
man has done ! Has he not taken possession of your soil, 
in that he has put his horse into your ground without your 
permission? Come, go to him and see by what right! 
Therefore have I come to ask you who gave you permission 
to use my soil for a burymg-ground ?" 

W. M. — "I want no man's permission to do what is 
right. My horse died ; had I left him to fester and stink 
in your valley, sickness would visit your village, your water 
would become unwholesome, and caravans would not stop 
here for trade; for they would say, ^This is an unlucky 
spot, let us go away.' But enough said ; I understand you 
to say you do not want him buried in your ground ; the 
error I have fallen into is easily put right. This minute 
my soldiers shall dig him out again and cover up the soil 
as it was before, and the horse shall be left where he died." 
(Then shouting to Bombay). "Ho, Bombay,vtake soldiers 
with jeinbes to dig my horse out of the ground ; drag him 
to wliere he died and make everything ready for a march 
to-morrow morning." 

Kingaru, his voice considerably higher and his head 
moving to and fro with emotion, cries out, " Akuna, akuna, 
Bana" — no, no, master "Let not the white man get angry. 



61 DEATH OF HIS BAY HORSE. 

The horse is dead and now lies buried ; let him remain S(\ 
Bmce he is already there, and let us be friends again." 

The matter had hardly been settled, when Stanley heard 
deep groans issuing from one of the animals. On inquiry, 
he found that they came from the bay horse. He took a 
lantern and visited him, staying all night, hoping to save 
his life. It was in vain — in the morning he died, leaving 
him now without any horse, which reduced him to donkey 
riding. Three days passed, and the lagging caravan had 
not come up. In the meantime, one of his carriers deserted, 
while sickness attacked the camp, and out of his twenty- 
five men, ten were soon on the sick list. On the 4th, 
the caravan came up, and on the following morning -was 
dispatched forward, the leader being spurred on with the 
promise of a liberal reward if he hurried to Unyanyembe. 
The next morning, to rouse his people, he beat an alarm on 
a tin pan, and before sunrise they were on the march, the 
villagers rushing like wolves into the deserted camp to pick 
up any rags or refuse left behind. The march of fifteen 
miles to Imbike showed a great demoralization in his men, 
many of them not coming up till nightfall. One of the 
carriers had deserted on the way, taking with him a quan- 
tity of cloth and beads. The next morning, before start- 
ing, men were sent in pursuit of him. They made that 
day, the 8th, but ten miles to Msuwa. Though the journey 
w^as short, it was the most fatiguing one of all. As it gives 
a vivid description of the difficulties experienced in trav- 
eling through this country, we quote his own language : 

•' It was one continuous jungle, except three interjacent 
glades of narrow limits, which gave us three breathing 
pauses in the dire task of jungle-traveling. The odor 
emitted from its fell plants was so rank, so pungently acrid, 
and the miasma from its decayed vegetation so dense, that 
I exjDected every moment to see myself and men fall down 



COMIXG TO GEIEF. 



Cj 



in paroxysms of acute fever. Happily tliis evil Avas not 
added to tliat of loading and unloading the frequently- 
falling j)acks. Seven soldiers to 'attend seventeen laden 
donkeys, were entirely too small a number while passing 
through a jungle; for while the path is but a foot wide, 
with a wall of thorny 2:)lants and creepers bristling on eacli 
side, and projecting branches darting across it, with knots 
of 'spiky twigs, stiff as spike-nails, ready to catch and hold 
anything above four feet in height, it is but reasonable to 
suppose that donkeys, standing four feet high, with loads 
measuring across, from bale to bale, four feet, would come 
to grief. 

" This grief was of frequent recurrence here, causing us 
to pause every few minutes for re-arrangements. So often 
had this task to be j^erformed, that the men got perfectly 
discouraged, and had to be s|)oken to sharply before they 
set to work. By the time I reached Msuwa, there w^as no- 
body with me and the ten donkeys I drove but Mabruk, 
the Little, who, though generally stolid, stood to his work 
like a man. Bombay and Uledi were far behind with the 
most jaded donkeys. Shaw was in charge of the cart, and 
his exj^-eriences were most bitter, as he informed me he had 
expended a whole vocabulary of stormy abuse known to 
sailors, and a new one which he had invented ex tempore. 
He did not arrive until two o'clock next morning, and was 
completely worn out. Truly, I doubt if the most pious 
divine, in traveling through that long jungle, under those 
circumstances, with such oft-recurring annoyances, Sisy- 
phean labor, could, have avoided cursing his folly for com- 
ing hither." 

A halt was made here, that men and animals might re- 
cuperate. The chief of this village was " a wdiite man in 
everything but color," and brought him the choicest mut- 
ton. He and his subjects were intelligent enough to com- 



66 THE BELLES OF KISEMO. 

preliend the utility of his breech-loading guns, and by theii 
gestures illustrated their comprehension of the deadly effects 
of those weapons in battle. 

On the 10th, somewhat recuperated, the caravan left this 
hospitable village, and crossed a beautiful little plain, with 
a few cultivated fields, from which the tillers stared in won- 
der at the unwonted spectacle it presented. But here 
Stanley met one of those sights common in that part of the 
world, but which, it is to be hoped, will soon be seen no 
more. It was a chained slave gang, bound east. He says the 
slaves did not appear in the least to be down-hearted, on the 
contrary, they were jolly and gay. But for the chains, 
there was no difference between master and slave. The 
chains were heavy, but as men and women had nothing 
else to carry, being entirely naked, their weight, he says, 
could not have been insupportable. He camped at 10 
A. M., and fired two guns, to show they were ready to 
trade with any of the natives in the region. The halting- 
place was Kisemo, only twelve miles from Msuwa, which 
was the centre of a populous district, there being no 
less than five villages in the vicinity, fortified by stakes 
and thorny abattis, as formidable, in their w^ay, as the old 
fosse and draw-bridge of feudal times. " The belles of Kise- 
mo," he says, " are of gigantic posterioral proportions," and 
are " noted for their variety in brass wire, which is wound 
in spiral rings round their wrists and ankles, and for the 
varieties of style which their hisped heads exhibit ; while 
their poor lords, obliged to be contented wdth dingy, torn 
clouts and split ears, show what wade sway Asmodeus holds 
over this terrestial sphere — for it must have been an un- 
happy time when the hard besieged husbands gave way be- 
fore their hotly-pressing sjDOuses. Besides these brassy orna- 
ments on their extremities, the women of Kisemo frequently 
wear lengthy necklaces, w^hich run in rivers of colors down 



CURIOUS NATIVE SUPERSTITION. 01 

tlieir black bodies.'^ But a more comical picture is v^klom 
presented than that of one of those highly-dressed females, 
" with their huge posterior development, while grinding out 
corn. This is done in a machine very much like an old- 
fashioned churn, except the dasher becomes a pestle and 
the churn a mortar. Swaying with the pestle, as it rises 
and falls, the breast and posteriors correspond to the strokes 
of the dasher in a droll sort of sing-song, which gave to the 
whole exhibition the drollest effect imaginable." 

A curious superstition of the natives was brought to light 
here by Shaw removing a stone while putting up his tent. 
As he did so, the chief rushed forward, and putting it back 
in its place, solemnly stood upon it. On being asked what 
was the matter, he carefully lifted it, pointed to an insect 
pinned by a stick to the ground, which he said had been 
the cause of a miscarriage of a female of the village. 

In the afternoon the messengers came back with the 
deserter and all the stolen goods. Some of the natives had 
captured him and were about to kill him and take the 
goods, when they came up and claimed both. He was 
given up, they being content with receiving a little cloth 
and beads in return. Stanley, with great sagacity, caused 
him to be tried by the other carriers, who condemned him 
to be flogged. They were ordered to carry out their own 
sentence, which they did amid the yells of the culprit. 

Before night a caravan arrived, bringing, among other 
things, a copy of the Hei^ald, containing an account of a 
presidential levee in Washington, in which the toilets of 
the various ladies were given. While engrossed in reading 
in his tent, Stanley suddenly became aware that his tent- 
door was darkened, and looking up, he saw the chief's 
daughters gazing with wondering eyes on the great 
sheets of pa]3er he was scanning so closely. The sight of 
these naked beauties, glittering in brass wire and beads, 



CS GOOD NEWS OF LIYIXGSTONE. 

presented a ludicrous contrast to the elaborately-dressed 
belles of whom he had been reading in the paper, and 
made him feel, by contrast, in what a different world he was 
living. 

On the 12th, the caravan reached Munondi, on the Un- 
gerangeri River. The country was open and beautiful, 
presenting a natural park, while the roads were good, 
making the day's journey delightful. Flowers decked the 
ground, and the perfume of sweet-smelling shrubs filled 
the air. As they approached the river, they came upon 
fields of Indian corn and gardens filled with vegetables, 
while stately trees lined the bank. On the 14th, they 
crossed the river and entered the Wakami territory. This 
and the next day the road lay through a charming coun- 
try. The day following, they marched through a forest 
between two mountains rising on either side of them, and on 
the 16th reached the territory of Wosigahha. As he ap- 
proached the village of Muhalleh he was greeted with the 
discharge of musketry. It came from the fourth caravan, 
which had halted here. Here also good news awaited him. 
An Arab chief, with a caravan bound east, was in the 
place, and told him that he had met Livingstone at Ujiji, 
and had lived in the next hut to him for two weeks. He 
described him as looking old, with long, gray moustache 
and beard, just recovered from illness, and looking very 
wan. He said, moreover, that he was fully recovered, 
and was going to visit a country called Monyima. This 
was cheering news, indeed, and filled his heart with joy and 
hope. The valley here, with its rich crops of Indian corn, 
was more like some parts of the fertile west than a desert 
country. But the character of the natives began to change. 
They became more insolent and brutal, and accomjDanied 
their requests with threats. 

Continuing their journey along the valley of the river. 



A WALLED TOWN. C9 

tliey suddenly, to tlieir astonisliment, came upon a Availed 
town containing a thousand houses. It rose before them 
like an apparition with its gates and towers of stone and 
double row of loop holes for musketry. The fame of Stanley 
had preceded him, being carried by the caravans he had 
dispatched ahead, and a thousand or more of the inhabitants 
came out to see him. This fortified town was established by 
an adventurer famous for his kidnapping propensities. A 
barbaric orator, a man of powerful strength, and of cunning 
address, he naturally acquired an ascendency over the rude 
tribes of the region, and built him a caj^ital, and fortified it 
and became a self-appointed sultan. Growing old, he 
changed his name, which had been a terror to the surround- 
ing tribes, and also the name of his capital, and just before 
death, bequeathed his power to his eldest daughter, and 
named the town the Sultana, in her honor, which it still 
bears. The various women and children hung on the rear 
of Stanley's caravan, filled with strange curiosity at siglit 
of this first white man they had ever seen, but the searching 
sun drove them back one by one, and when Stanley pitched 
his camp, four miles farther on, he was unmolested. He 
determined to halt here for two days to overhaul his bag- 
gage and give the donkeys, whose backs had become sore, 
time to recuperate. On the second day, he was attacked 
with the African fever, similar to the chills and fever of 
the west and south-west. He at once applied the remedies 
used in the Western States — namely, powerful doses of 
quinine, and in three days he j)i*onounced himself well 



CHAPTEE V. 

The rainy season sets in— disgusting insects— the cook caught stealing— his punish, 
ment and flight— the march— men dispatched after the missing cook— their harsh 
treatment by the sultana op the walled town— a hard march— crossing the 
makata river— the rainy season ended— five miles of wading — an enchanting 
prospect— reaches his third caravan, and finds it demoralized— shaw, its leader^ 
a drunken spendthrift— delays the march— stanley's dispatch to him— lake 
ugombo— scene between stanley and shaw at breakfast, the latter knocked 
down— attejtpt to murder stanley— good advice of an arab sheikh— a feast— 
farquhar left behind. 

HE had now traveled one hundred and nineteen miles 
in fourteen marches, occupying one entire month 
lacking one day, and making, on an average, four miles a 
day. This was slow work. The rainy season now set in, 
and day after day it was a regular down-pour. Stanley 
was 'compelled to halt, while disgusting insects, beetles, 
bugs, wasps, centipedes, worms and almost every form of 
the lower, animal life, to6k possession of his tent, and gave 
him the first real taste of African life. 

On the fifth morning (the 23d of April), he says the 
rain held up for a short time, and he prepared to cross the 
river, now swollen and turbid. The bridge over which he 
carried his baggage was of the most primitive kind, while 
the donkeys had to swim over. The passage occupied five 
hours, yet was happily accomplished without any casualties. 

Reloading his baggage and wringing out his clothes, he 
set out — leaving the river and following a path that led off 
in a northerly direction. 

With his heart made more light and cheerful by being 
on the march and out of the damp and hateful valley, made 

70 



PUNISHMENT FOR PILFERINGU 71 

Btill more liatefal by the disgusting insect life that filled his 
tent, he ascended to higher ground, and passing with his 
caravan through successive glades, oj)ening one after 
another between forest clumps of trees hemmed in distantly 
by isolated peaks and scattered mountains. " Now and 
then," he says, " as we crested low eminences, we caught 
sight of the blue Usagara Mountains, bounding the horizon 
westerly and northerly, and looked down on a vast expanse 
of plain wdiich lay between. At the foot of the lengthy 
slope, well watered by bubbling springs and mountain rills, 
we found a comfortable Khembi with well-made huts, which 
the natives call Simbo. It lies just tw^o hours, or five miles, 
north-west from the Ungerengeri crossing." 

We here get incidentally the rapidity with which he 
traveled, where the face of the country and the roads gave 
him the greatest facilities for quick marching, two " hours' 
or five miles," he says, v^hich makes his best time two miles 
and a half an hour. In this open, beautiful country no 
villages or settlements could be seen, though he was told 
there were many in the mountain inclosures, whose inhab- 
itants were false, dishonest and murderous. 

On the morning of the 24th, as they w^ere about to leave 
Simbo, his Arab cook w^as caught, for the fifth time, pilfer- 
ing, and it being proved against him, Stanley ordered a 
dozen lashes to be inflicted on him as a punishment, and 
Shaw was ordered to administer them. The blows beini^ 
given through his clothes, did not hurt him much, but the 
stern decree that he, with his donkey and baggage, should 
be expelled from camp and turned adrift in the forests of 
Africa, drove him wild and, leaving donkey and everything 
else, he rushed out of camp and started for the mountains. 
Stanley, wishing only to frighten him, and, having no idea 
of leaving the poor fellow to perish at the hands of the 
natives, sent a coujDle of his men to recall him. But it 



72 SERIOUS LOSSES. 

was of no use, the poor, frightened wretch kept on for the 
mountains, and was soon out of sight aUogether. Believing 
he would think better of it and return, his donkey was 
tied to a tree near the camping-ground, and the caravan 
started forward, and passing through the Makata Valley, 
which afterward became of sorrowful memory, it halted at 
Kehenneko, at the base of the Usagara Mountains, six 
marches distant. This valley is a wilderness, covered with 
bamboo, and palm, and other trees, with but one village on 
its broad expanse, through which the harte beast, the an- 
telope and the zebra roam. In the lower portions, the mud 
was so deep that it took ten hours to go ten miles, and they 
Were compelled to encamp in the woods when but half-way 
across. Bombay with the cart did not get in till near mid- 
night, and he brought the dolorous tale, that he had lost 
the property tent, an axe, besides coats, shirts, beads, cloth, 
jDistol and hatchet and powder. He said he had left them 
a little while to help lift the cart out of a mud-hole and 
during his absence they disappeared. This told to Stanley 
at midnight roused all his wrath, and he j)oured a perfect 
storm of abuse on the cringing Arab, and he took occasion 
to overhaul his conduct from the start. The cloth if ever 
found, he said, would be spoiled, the axe, which would be 
needed at Ujiji to construct a boat, was an irreparable loss, 
to say nothing of the pistol, powder and hatchet, and, 
worse than all, he had not brought back the cook, whom 
he knew there was no intention to abandon, and he then 
and there told him he would degrade him from office and 
put another man in his place, and then dismissed him, with 
orders to return at daylight and find the missing property. 
Four more were dispatched after the missing cook ; Stanley 
halted here three days to wait the return of his 
men. In the meantime, provisions ran low, and though 
there was plenty of game, it was so wild that but little 



BEFORE THE SULTANA. 73 

could "be obtained — lie being able to secure but two potfulls 
in two days' shooting — these were quail, grouse and 
pigeons. On the fourth day, becoming exceedingly 
anxious, he dispatched Shaw and two more soldiers after 
the missing men. Toward night he returned, sick with 
ague, bringing the soldiers with him, but not the missing 
cook. The soldiers reported that they had marched im- 
mediately back to Simbo and, having searched in vain in 
its vicinity for the missing man, went to the bridge over 
the river to hiquire if he had crossed there. They were 
told, so they said, that a white donkey had crossed the 
river in another place driven by some Washensi. Believ- 
ing the cook had been murdered by those men, who were 
making off with his property, they hastened to the walled 
town and told the warriors of the western gate that two 
Washensi must have passed the place with a white donkey, 
who had murdered a man belonging to the white man. 
They were immediately conducted to the sultana, who had 
much of the spirit of her father, to whom they told their 
story. 

"The sultana demanded of the watchmen of the towers if 
they had seen the two Washensi with the white donkey. 
The watchmen answered in the affirmative, ujDon which 
she at once dispatched twenty of her musketeers in pur- 
suit to Muhalleh, who returned before night, bringing with 
them the two Washensi and the donkey, with the cook's 
entire kit. The sultana, who is evidently possessed of her 
father's energy, with all his lust for wealth, had my mes- 
sengers, the two Washensi, the cook's donkey and property 
at once brought before her. The two Washensi were ques- 
tioned as to how they became possessed of the donkey and 
such a store of Kisunga clothes, cloth and beads ; to which 
they answered that they had found the donkey tied to 
a tree with the property on the ground close to it; 



74 SENTENCE OF THE SULTANA. 

that seeing no owner or claimant anywhere in the neigh- 
borhood, they thought they had a right to it, and ac- 
cordingly had taken it with them. My soldiers were 
then asked if they recognized the donkey and property, to 
which questions they unhesitatingly made answer that 
they did. They further informed Her Highness that they 
were not only sent after the donkey, hut also after the 
owner, who had deserted their master's service ; that they 
would like to know from the Washensi what they had 
done with him. Her Highness was also anxious to know 
what the Washensi had done with the Hindi, and accord- 
ingly, in order to elicit the fact, she charged them with 
murdering him, and informed them she but wished to 
know what they had done with the body. 

" The Washensi declared most earnestly that they had 
spoken the truth, that they had never seen any such man 
as described ; and if the sultana desired, they would swear 
to such a statement. Her Highness did not wish them to 
swear to what in her heart she believed to be a lie, but she 
would chain them and send them in charge of a caravan to 
Zanzibar to Lyed Burghosh, who would kno\y what to do 
with them. Then turning to my soldiers, she demanded to 
know why the Musungu had not paid the tribute for which 
she had sent her chiefs. The soldiers could not answer, 
knowing nothing of such concerns of their master's. The 
heiress of Kisabengo, true to the character of her robber 
sire, then informed my trembling men tliat^ as the Musungu 
had not paid the tribute, she would now take it ; their guns 
should be taken from them, together with that of the cook ; 
the cloth and beads found on the donkey she would 
also take, the Hindi's personal clothes her chiefs should 
retain, while they themselves should be chained until the 
Musungu himself should return and. take them by force. 

"And as she threatened, so was it done. For sixteen 



KEPOET OF MY POWEE. 75 

hours, my soldiers were in chains in the market-place, ex- 
posed to the taunts of the servile populace. It chanced 
the next day, however, that Sheikh Thani, whom I met 
at Kingaru, and had since passed by five days, had arrived 
at Simbamwenni, and proceeding to the town to purchase 
provisions for the crossing of the Makata wilderness, saw 
my men in chains and at once recognized them as being in 
my employ. After hearing their story, the good-hearted 
sheikh sought the presence of the sultana, and informed 
her that she was doing very wrong — a wrong that could 
only terminate in blood. 'The Musungu is strong,' 
he said, 'very strong. He has got ten guns which shoot 
forty times without stopping, carrying bullets half an 
hour's distance; he has got several guns which carry 
bullets that burst and tear a man in pieces. He could go 
to the top of that mountain and kill every man, woman 
and child in the town before one of your soldiers could 
reach the top. The road will then be stopped, Lyed Bur- 
ghosh will march against your country, the Wadoe and 
Wakami will come and take revenge on what is left ; and 
the place that your father made so ^rong will know the 
Waseguh ha no more. Set free the Musungu's soldiers ; 
give them their food and grain for the Musungu ; return 
the guns to the men and let them go, for the white man 
may even now be on his way here.' 

'' The exaggerated report of my power, and the dread 
picture sketched by the Arab sheikh, produced good 
effect, inasmuch as Kingaru and the Mabrukis were at once 
released from durance, furnished with food sufficient to last 
our caravan four days, and one gun with its accoutrements 
and stock of bullets ajid powder, was returned, as well as 
the cook's donkey, with a pair of spectacles, a book in 
Malabar print and an old hat which belonged to one whom 
we all now believed to be dead. The sheikh took charge 



73 FLOUNDERING AND FLOATING. 

of the soldiers as far as Simbo ; and it was in his camp, 
partaking largely of rice and ghee, that Shaw found them, 
and the same bountiful hospitality was extended to him 
and his companions." 

Stanley was now filled with keen regrets that he had 
punished the cook in the manner he did, and mentally re- 
solved that no matter what a member of his caravan should 
do in the future he would never drive him out of camp to 
perish by assassins. Still he would not yet believe that he 
was murdered. But he was furious at the treatment of his 
soldiers by the black Amazon of Limbamwanni, and the 
tribute she exacted, especially the seizure of the guns, and 
if he had been near the place would have made reprisals. 
But he had already lost four days, and so, next morning, 
although the rain was coming down in torrents, he broke 
camj^ and set forth. Shaw was still sick, and so the whole 
duty of driving the floundering caravan devolved upon 
himself. As fast as one was flogged out of the mire in 
which he had stuck, another would fall in. It took two 
hours to cross the miry j)lain, though it was but a mile and 
a half wide. * He was congratulating himself on having at 
last got over it, when he was confronted by a ditch which 
the heavy rains had converted into a stream breast deep. 
The donkeys had all to be unloaded, and led through the 
torrent, and loaded again on the farther side. They had 
hardly got under way when they came upon another 
stream, so deep that it could not be forded, and over which 
they had to swim, and float across their baggage. They 
then floundered on until they came to a bend of the river, 
where they pitched their camp, having made but six miles 
the whole day. This E-iver Makata is only about forty feet 
in width in the dry saeson, but at this time was a wide, 
turbid stream. Its shores, with its matted grass, decayed 
vegetable matter, reeking mists, seemed the very home of 



SEVERE ILLNESS OF STANLEY. 7\} 

the ague and fever. It took five hours to cross it the next 
morning. The rain came down in such torrents that trav- 
eling became impossible, and the camp was pitched. 
Luckily this proved the last day of the rainy season. 

It was now the 1st of May, and the expedition was in a 
pitiable plight. Shaw was still sick, and one man was down 
with the small-pox. Bombay, too, was sick, and others com- 
plaining. Doctoring the sick as well as he knew how, and 
laying the whip lustily on the backs of those who were 
shamming, Stanley at length got his caravan in motion and 
began to cross the Makata plain, now a swamp thirty -five 
miles broad. It was plash, plash, through the water, in 
some places three or four feet deep, for two days, until they 
came in sight of the Kudewa River. Crossing a branch of 
this stream, a sheet of water five miles broad stretched out 
before the tired caravan. The men declared it could not 
be crossed, but Stanley determined to try, and after five 
hours' of the most prostrating effort reached dry ground j^ 
but his animals began to sicken from this day on, while 
Stanley himself was seized with the dysentery, caused by 
his exposure, and was brought to the verge of the grave. 
The expedition seemed about to end there on the borders 
of the Makata swamp. 

On the 4th, they came to the important village of Ee- 
henneko, the first near which they had encamped since en- 
tering the district of Usagara. It was a square, compact 
village, of about one thousand inhabitants, surrounded by 
a mud wall and composed of cane-topped huts, which the 
natives moved from j^lace to place at pleasure. The 
peculiar ceremonies of the queen's court were very 
interesting to witness. They rested here four days to 
recruit. On the 8th, they started forward and began to 
ascend the mountain. Having reached the summit of the 
first range of hills, Stanley paused to survey the enchant- 



80 DEBAUCHERIES OF FARQUHAR. 

ing prospect. The broad valley of Makata stretched out 
before him, laced with streams sparkling in the sun, while 
over it waved countless palm-trees, and far away, blue in 
the distance, stretched a mighty range of mountains^ 
" Turning our faces west," he says, " we found ourselves in a 
mountain world, fold rising above fold, peak behind peak, cone 
jostling cone; away to the north, to the west, to the souths 
the mountain tops rolled away like so many vitrified waves, 
not one adust or arid spot was visible in all this scene.'* 
The change from the pestilential swamps, through which 
they had been so long floundering, was most grateful, but thp^ 
animals suffered greatly, and before they reached their first, 
camping-ground, two had given out. The 9th, they de- 
scended into the valley of Mukondokno, and there struck 
the road traversed by Speke and Burton in 1817. Keach-- 
ing the dirty village, Kiora, Stanley found there his third 
caravan, led by Farquhar. By his debaucheries on the 
way he had made himself sick and brought his caravan 
into a sad condition. As he heard Stanley's voice, he came 
staggering out of his tent, a bloated mass of human flesh 
that never would have been recognized as the trim mate of 
the vessel that brought Stanley from India. After he ex- 
amined him as to the cause of his illness, he questioned him 
about the condition of the property intrusted to his care. 
Not able to get an intelligent answer out of him, he re- 
solved to overhaul his baggage. On examination, he found 
that he had spent enough for provisions on which to gor- 
mandize to have lasted eight months, and yet he had been 
on the route but two and a half months. If Stanley had 
not overtaken him, everything would have been squan- 
dered, and of all the bales of cloth he was to take to Un- 
yanyembe not one bale would have been left. Stanley was 
Borely puzzled what to do with the miserable man. He 
would "die if left at Kiora; he could not walk or ride far^ 
and to carry liiin seemed well-nigh impossible. 



SMETHING WRONG. 83 

On'tlie 11th, however, the two caravans started forward, 
leaving Shaw to follow with one of the men. But he lagged 
behind, and had not reached the camp when it was roused 
next morning. Stanley at once dispatched two donkeys, 
one for the load that was on the cart and the other for 
Shaw, and with the messenger the following note : " You will, 
upon the receipt of this order, pitch the cart into the nearest 
ravine, gully or river, as well as all the extra pach saddles ; 
and come at once, for God^s sake, for we must not starve 
here^ After waiting four hours, he went back himself and 
met them, the carrier with the cart on his head, and Shaw 
on the donkey, apparently ready, at the least jolt, to tumble 
off. They, however, pushed on, and arrived at Madete at 
4 o'clock. Crossing the river about three, and keeping on, 
they, on the 14th, from the top of a hill, caught sight of 
Lake Ugenlo. The outline of it, he says, resembles 
England without Wales. It is some three miles long by 
two wide, and is the abode of great numbers of hippopotami, 
while the buffalo, zebra, boar and antelope come here by 
night to quench their thirst. Its bosom is covered with 
wild fowl of every description. Being obliged to halt here 
two days on account of the desertion of the cooper, with 
one of the carbines, he explored the lake, and tried several 
shots at the lumbering hippopotami without effect. 

The deserter having returned of his own free Avill, the 
caravan started forward, cursed by the slow progress of the 
peevish, profane and violent Shaw. The next day, at 
breakfast, a scene occurred that threatened serious conse- 
quences. When Shaw and Farquhar took their places, 
Stanley saw by their looks that something was wrong. 
The breakfast was a roast quarter of goat, stewed liver, 
some sweet potatoes, pancakes and coffee. " Shaw," said 
Stanley, " please carve and serve Farquhar." Instead of 
doing so, he exclaimed in an insulting tone, "What dog's meat 



84 GOOD NEWS OF LIVINGSTONE. 

is this?" "What do you mean," demanded Stanley. "I 
mean, " replied the fellow, "that it is a downright shame the 
way you treat us," and then complained of being compelled to 
walk and help himself, instead, as he was promised, have ser- 
vants to wait u23on him. All this was said in a loud, defiant 
tone, interluded with frequent oatlis and curses of the 
" damned expedition," etc. When he had got through, Stan- 
ley, fixing his black, resolute eye on him, said : " Listen to 
me, Shaw, and you, Farquhar, ever since you left the coast, 
you have had donkeys to ride. You have had servants to wait 
upon you ; your tents have been set up for you ; your meals 
have been cooked for you ; you have eaten witU me of the 
same food I have eaten ; you have received tho same treat- 
ment I have received. But now all Farquhar's donkeys 
are dead ; seven of my own have died, and I have had to 
throw away a few things, in order to procure carriage for 
the most important goods. Farquhar is too sick to walk, 
he must have a donkey to ride ; in a few days all our 
animals will be dead, after which I must have over twenty 
more pagosis to take up the goods or wait weeks and weeks 
for carriage. Yet, in the face of these things, you can 
grumble, and curse, and swear at me at my own table. 
Have you considered well your position ? Do you realize 
where ypu are ? Do you know that you are my servant, 
sir, not my companion ?" 

" Servant, be " said he. 

Just before Mr. Shaw could finish his sentence he had 
measured his length on the ground. 

" Is it necessary for me to proceed further to teach you ?" 
said Stanley. 

" I tell you what it is, sir," he said, raising himself up, 
" I think I had better go back. I have had enough, and 
I do not mean to go any farther with you. I ask my dis- 
charge from you." 



SHAW PENITENT. 8<5 

m 

" Oh, certainly. What — who is there ? Bombay, come 
here." 

After Bombay's appearance at the tent-door, Stanley said 
to him : " Strike this man's tent," pointing to Shaw ; " he 
wants to go back. Bring his giin and pistol here to my 
tent, and take this man and his baggage two hundred yards 
outside of the camp, and there leave him." 

In a few minutes his tent was down, his gun and pistol 
In Stanley's tent, and Bombay returned to make his report, 
with four men under arms. 

" Now go, sir. You are at perfect liberty to go. These 
men will escort you outside of camp, and there leave you • 
^nd your baggage." 

He walked out, the men escorting him and carrying his 
baggage for him. 

After breakfast Stanley explained to Farquhar how 
necessary it was to be able to proceed ; that he had had 
plenty of trouble, without having to think of men who were 
employed to think of him and their duties ; that, as he (Far- 
quhar) was sick, and would be probably unable to march for 
a time, it would be better to leave him in some quiet 
place, under the care of a good chief, who would, for a con- 
sideration, look after him until he got well. To all of 
which Farquhar agreed. 

Stanley had barely finished speaking before Bombay came 
to the tent-door, saying: "Shaw would like to speak to you." 

Stanley went out to the door of the camp, and there met 
Shaw, looking extremely penitent and ashamed. He com- 
menced to ask pardon, and began imploring to be taken 
back, and promising that occasion to find fault with him 
again should never arise. 

Stanley held out his hand, saying : " Don't mention it, 
my dear fellow. Quarrels occur in the best of families. 
Since you apologize, there is an end of it." 



S6 A STRANGE SHOT. 

That night, as Stanley was about falling asleep, he heard 
a shot, and a bullet tore through the tent a few inches 
above his body. He snatched his revolver and rushed out 
from the tent, and asked the men around the watch-fires,, 
" Who shot ?" They had all jumped up, rather startled 
by the sudden report. 

"Who fired that gun?'' 

One said the " Bana Mdogo " — little master. 

Stanley lit a candle and walked with it to Shaw's tent. 

"Shaw, did you fire r 

There was no answer. He seemed to be asleep, he was 
breathing so hard. 

"Shaw! Shaw! did you fire that shot ?" 

" Eh — eh ?" said he, suddenly awakening ; " me ? — me 
fire ? I have been asleep." 

Stanley's eye caught sight of his gun lying near him. 
He seized it — felt it — put his little finger down the barrel. 
The gun was warm ; his finger was black from the burnt 
gunpowder. 

" What is this ?" he asked, holding his finger up ; " the 
gun is warm ; the men tell me you fired." 

" Ah — yes," he replied, " I remember it. I dreamed I 
saw a thief pass my door, and I fired. Ah — yes — I forgot,, 
I did fire. Why, what's the matter ?" 

" Oh, nothing," said Stanley. " But I would advise you,, 
in future, in order to avoid all suspicion, not to fire into my 
tent ; or, at least, so near me. I might get hurt, you know^ 
in which case ugly reports would get about, and that, per- 
haps, .would be disagreeable, as you are probably aware. 
Good-night." . 

All had their thoughts about this mattei*, but Stanley 
never uttered a word about it to any one until he met 
Livingstone. The doctor embodied his suspicions in the 
words : " He intended murder !" 



SHAW'S EVIDENT INTENT. 87 

Mr. Livingstone was evidently right in his conjecture, 
and Mr. Stanley wrong about the intent of Shaw. In the 
first place, the coincidence in time between the punishment 
inflicted on Shaw and this extraordinary shot, in which the 
ball took the still more extraordinary direction of going 
through Stanley's tent, that is, to say the least, very diffi- 
cult to explain. In the second place, his drowsy condition 
when questioned, and finally remembering so much as that 
he dreamed a thief was passing his door, is more than sus- 
picious. The fact that, as Mr. Stanley says, he could have 
had much better opportunities of killing him than this, we 
regard of very little weight. Opportunities that are abso- 
lutely certain of success without suspicion or detection, are 
not so common as many suppose. Besides, an opportunity 
so good that the would-be murderer could desire nothing 
better might occur, and yet the shot or stab not prove fatal. 
In this case, it doubtless never occurred to this man that 
any one would run his finger down his gun-barrel to see if' 
it was hot from a recent discharge, while no man could tell^ 
in the middle of the night, who fired the shot. It is true, 
that the wretch knew that the chances were against such a 
random fire proving fatal, but he knew it was better to 
take them than the almost certain discovery, if he adopted 
any other method. If, for instance, he had in a lonely 
place fired at Stanley, and the shot had not proved mortal, 
or if mortal, not immediately so, he well knew what would 
have been his fate, in the heart of Africa, where justice is 
administered without the form of law. 

On the 16th of May, the little caravan started off again, 
and after a march of fifteen miles, camped at Matamombo, 
in a region where monkeys, rhinocerse, steinlaks and ante- 
lopes abounded. The next day's march was through an 
interminable jungle, and extended fifteen miles. Here he 
came upon the old Arab sheikh, Thani, who gave him the 



^8 FAEQUHAR LEFT. 

following good advice : " Stop here two or three days, give 
your tired animals some rest, and collect all the carriers 
you can ; fill your insides with fresh milk, sweet potatoes, 
beef, mutton, ghee, honey, beans, matama, maderia, nuts, 
and then, Inshalla ! we shall go through Ugogo tv^ithout 
stopping anywhere." Stanley was sensible enough to take 
this advice. He at once commenced on this certainly very 
prodigal bill of fare for Central Africa. How it agreed 
with him after the short trail of a single day, may be 
inferred from the following entry in his diary : 

" Thank God ! after fifty-seven days of living upon mata- 
ma porridge and tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous 
satisfaction a real breakfast and a good dinner." 

Here upon the Mpwapwa, he found a place to leave the 
Scotchman, Farquhar, until he should be strong enough to 
join him at Unyanyembe. But when he proposed this to 
the friendly chief, he would consent only on the condition 
"that he would leave one of his own men behind to take 
€are of him. This complicated matters* not only because 
he could not well spare a man, but because it would be 
•difficult to find one who would consent to undertake this 
difiicult task. This man, whom Stanley had thought 
would be a reliable friend and a good companion in his 
long, desolate marches, had turned out a burden and a 
nuisance. His wants were almost endless, and instead of 
using the few words in the language of the natives to make 
them known, he would use nothing but the strongest Anglo- 
Saxon, and when he found he was not understood, would 
fall to cursing in equally good round English oaths, and 
if the astonished natives did not understand this, relapsed 
into regular John Bull sullenness. When, therefore, Stan- 
ley opened up the subject to Bombay, the latter was horri- 
fied. He said the men had made a contract to go through, 
not to stop by the way ; and when Stanley, in despair, 



SAKO LEFT WITH FAEQUHAK. 89 

turned to the men, they one and all refused absolutely to 
remain behind with the cursing, unreasonable white man — 
one of them mimicking his absurd conduct so completely, 
that Stanley himself could not help laughing. But the 
man must be left behind, and somebody must take care of 
him ; and so Stanley had to use his authority, and notwith- 
standing all his protestations and entreaties, Sako, the only 
•one who could speak English, was ordered to stay behind. 

Having engaged here twelve new carriers, and from the 
nearest mountain summit, obtained an entrancing view of 
the surrounding region for a hundred miles, he prepared 
to start, but not before, notwithstanding the good milk it 
furnished, giving Mpwapwa a thorough malediction for its 
earwigs. " In my tent," he says, " they might be counted 
by thousands ; in my slung cot by hundreds ; on my clothes 
they were by fifties ; on my neck and head they were by 
scores. The several plagues of locusts, fleas and lice sink 
into utter insignificance compared with this damnable one 
of earwigs." Their presence drove him almost insane. 
Next to these come the white ants, that threatened in a 
short time to eat up every article of baggage. 

He now pushed on toward the Ugogo district, famous 
for the tribute it exacted from all caravans. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THREE OF HIS CARAVANS MEET— A WATERLESS DESERT TRAVERSED— STANLEY DOWN WITH THK 
FEVER— A LAND OF PLENTY AND OP EXTORTION— A POPULOUS DISTRICT— A MODERN HERCULES 
—AN AFRICAN VILLAGE— STANLEY CURBS HIS TEMPER FOR ECONOMY'S SAKE— A GOOD SULTAN 
— NEWS FROM ONE OF HIS CARAVANS— CURIOUS NATI"V^ES — FLOGGED BY STANLEY INTO PROPER 
BEHAVIOR— SALT PLAINS— STANLEY STOPS TO DOCTOR HIMSELF— A CURIOUS VISIT FROM A 
"CHIEF- A NOBLE AFRICAN TRIBE— A MOB— QUARREL OVER THE ROUTE TO BE TAKEN— SETTLED 
BY STANLEY— A MERRY MARCH— CONDENSATION OF STANLEY'S ACCOUNT OF THE CHARACTER 
OF THE COUNTRY AND THE TRIBES OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 

ON the 22d of May, the two other caravans of Stan- 
ley joined him, only three hours' march from Mpwap^ 
wa, so that the one caravan numbered sorae four hun- 
dred souls — but not too large to insure a safe transit 
through dreaded Ugogo. A waterless desert, thirty miles 
across, and which it would take seventeen hours to traverse, 
now lay before them. On the way, Stanley was struck 
down with fever, and, borne along in a hammock, was in- 
different to the herds of giraffes, and zebras, and antelopes 
that scoured the desert plain around him. The next 
morning the fever left him, and, mounting, he rode at the 
head of his caravan, and at 8 A. M. had passed the sterile 
wilderness and entered the Ugogo district. He had now 
come into a land of plenty, but one also of extortion. The 
tribute that all passing caravans had to pay to the chiefs or 
sultans of this district was enormous. At the first village 
the appearance of this white man caused an indescribable 
uproar. The people came pouring out, men and women, 
naked, yelling, shouting, quarreling and fighting,. making 
it a perfect babel around Stanley, who became irritated at 
this unseemly demonstration. But it was of no use. One 

90 



A MODERN HERCULES. i)l 

of his men asked them to stop, but the only reply was 
''shut up,^ in good native language. Stanley, however 
was soon oblivious of their curiosity or noise — ^heavy doses 
of quinine to check a chill sent him off into a half doze. 
The next day, a march of eight miles brought him to the 
sultan of the district. Report did not exaggerate the 
abundance of provisions to be found here. Now came the 
pay of tribute to the exorbitant chief After a great deal 
of parley, which was irritating and often childish, Stanley 
satisfied the sultan's greed, and, on the 27th of May, shook 
the dust of the place from his feet and pushed westward. 
As he passed the thickly-scattered villages and plenteous 
fields, filled with tillers, he did not wonder at the haughty 
bearing of the sultan, for he could command force enough 
to rob and destroy every caravan that passed that way. 
Twenty-seven villages lined the road to the next sultan's 
district, Matomhiru. This sultan was a modern Hercules, 
with head and shoulders that belonged to a giant. He 
proved, however, to be a much more reasonable man than 
the last sultan, and, after a little speechifying, the tribute 
was paid and the caravan moved off toward Bihawena. 
The day was hot, the land sterile, crossed with many jun- 
gles, which made the march slow and difficult. In the 
midst of this desolate j^lain were the villages of the tribe, 
their huts no higher than the dry, bleached grass that 
stood glimmering in the heat of the noon-day sun. Here 
he was visited by three natives, who endeavored to play a 
sharp game upon, him, which so enraged Stanley that he 
would have flogged them with his whip out of camp, but 
one of his men told him to beware, for every blow would 
cost three or four yards of cloth. Not willing to pay so 
dearly to gratify his temper he forbore. The sultan was 
moderate in his demands, and from him he received news 
from his fourth caravan, which was in advance, and had 



92 THRASHING A NATIVE. 

had a fight with some robbers, killing two of them. It 
was only eight miles to the next sultan. The water here 
was so vile that two donkeys died by drinking of it, while 
the men could hardly swallow it. Stanley, nervous and 
weak from fever, paid the extravagant tributes demanded 
of him, without altercation. From here to the next sultan 
was a long stretch of forest, filled with elephants, rhinoce- 
ros, zebras, deer, etc. But they had no time to stop and 
hunt. At noon they had left the last water they should 
find until noon of the next day, even with sharp march- 
ing, and, hence, no delay could be permitted. The men 
without tents bivouacked under the trees, while Stanley 
tossed and groaned all night in a paroxysm of fever, but 
his courage in no way weakened. At dawn the caravan 
started off through the dark forest, in which one of the 
carriers fell sick and died. 

At 7 A. M. they drew near Nyambwa, where excellent 
water was found. The villagers crowded round them with 
shouts and yells, and finally became so insolent that Stan« 
ley grabbed one of them by the neck and gave him a sound 
thrashing with his donkey-whip. This enraged them, and 
they walked backward and forward like angry tom-cats, 
shouting, "Are the Wagogo to be beaten like slaves?" 
and they seemed, by their ferocious manner, determined 
to avenge their comrade, but the moment Stanley raised 
his whip and advanced they scattered. Finding that the 
long lash, which cracked like a pistol, had a wholesome 
effect, whenever they crowded upon him so 'as to impede 
his progress, he laid it about him without mercy, which 
soon cleared a path. 

The Sultan Kimberah was a small, queer and dirty old 
man, a great drunkard, and yet the most powerful of all 
the Ugogo chiefs. Here they had considerable trouble in 
arranging the amount of tribute, but at length everything 



THE sultan's astonishment. 9S 

was settled and the caravan passed on, and emerging from 
the corn-field, entered on a vast salt plain, containing a 
hundred or more square miles, from the salt springs of 
which the Wagogo obtained their salt. At Mizarza, the 
next camping-place, Stanley was compelled to halt and 
doctor himself for the fever which was wearing him to 
skin and bones. Early in the morning he began to take 
his quinine, and kept repeating the doses at short intervals 
until a copious perspiration told him he had broken the 
fever which had been consuming him for fourteen days. 
During this time, the sultan of the district, attracted by 
Stanley's lofty tent, with the American flag floating above 
it, visited him. He was so astonished at the loftiness and 
furnishing of the tent, that in his surprise he let fall the- 
loose cloth that hung from his shoulders and stood stark 
naked in front of Stanley, gaping in mute wonder. Ad-* 
monished by his son — a lad fifteen years old — he resumed 
his garb and sat down to talk. Stanley showed him his 
rifles and other fire-arms, which astonished him beyond 
measure. 

The 4th of June, the caravan was started forward again,, 
and after three hours' march, came upon another district, 
containing only two villages, occupied by pastoral Wa- 
humba and Wahehe. These live in cow-dung cone huts, 
shaped like Tartar tents. 

*' The Wahumba, so far as I have seen them, are a fine 

and well- formed race. The men are positively handsome, 

tall, with' small heads, the posterior parts of which project 

considerably. One will look in vain for a thick lip or 

flat nose amongst them ; on the contrary, the mouth is 

exceedingly well cut, delicately small ; the nose is that of 

the Greeks, and so universal was the peculiar feature, that 

I at once named them the Greeks of Africa. Their lower 

limbs have not the heaviness of the Wagogo and other 
6 



94 BOMANS OF AFBICA. 

tribes, but are long and shapely, clean as those of an ante- 
lope. Their necks are long and slender, on which their 
small heads are poised most gracefully. Athletes from 
their youth, shepherd bred, and intermarrying among them- 
selves, thus keeping the race pure, any of them would form 
a fit subject for a sculptor who would wish to immortalize 
in marble an Antrinus, a Hylas, a Daphnis, or an Apollo. 
The women are as beautiful as the men are handsome. 
They have clear ebon skins, not coal black, but of an inky 
hue. Their ornaments consist of spiral rings of brass 
pendent from the ears, brass ring collars about the neck, 
and a spiral cincture of brass wire about their loins, for the 
purpose of retaining their calf an,d goat skins, which are 
folded about their bodies, and depending from the shoulder, 
shade one half of the bosom, and fall to the knees. 

" The Wahehe may be styled the Romans of Africa. 

" Resuming our march, after a halt of an hour, in foui 
hours more we arrived at Mukondoku proper. 

'' This extremity of Ugogo is most populous. The villages 
which surround the central tembe, where the Sultan Swa- 
i*uru lives, amount to thirty-six. The people who flocked 
from these to see the wonderful men whose faces were white, 
who wore the most wonderful things on their persons, and 
possessed the most wonderful weapons ; guns which ^ bum- 
bummed ' as fast as you could count on your fingers, formed 
such a mob of howling savages, that I, for an instant, thought 
there was something besides mere curiosity which caused 
such a commotion, and attracted such numbers to the roadside. 
Halting, I asked what was the matter, and what they 
wanted, and why they made such a noise ? One burly 
rascal, taking my words for a declaration of hostilities, 
promptly drew his bow, but as prompt as he had fixed his 
arrow my faithful Winchester with thirteen shots in the 
magazine was ready and at my shoulder, and but waited to 



BEACHING THE BOEDER OF UYANZI. 9j 

see the arrow fly to pour the leaden messengers of death 
into the crowd. But the crowd vanished as quickly as they 
had come, leaying the burly Thersites, and two or three 
irresolute fellows of his tribe, standing within pistol range 
of my leveled rifle. Such a sudden dispersion of the mob 
which, but a moment before, was overwhelming, caused me 
to lower my rifle and indulge in a hearty laugh at the dis- 
graceful flight of tlie men-destroyers. The Arabs, who 
were as much alarmed at their boisterous obtrusiveness, 
now came up to patch a truce, in which they succeeded to 
everybody's satisfaction. 

"A few words of explanation, and the mob came back in 
greater numbers than before ; and the Thersites who had 
been the cause of the momentary disturbance were obliged 
to retire abashed before the pressure of public opinion. A 
chief now came up, whom I afterwards learned was the 
second man to Swaruru, and lectured the people upon their 
treatment of the * white strangers.' " 

The tribute-money was easily settled here. On the 7th of 
June, the route was resumed. There were three roads lead- 
ing to Uyanzi, and which of the three to take caused long 
discussion and much quarreling, and when Stanley settled 
the matter and the caravan started ofl* on the road to Kiti^ 
an attempt was made to direct it to another road, which 
Stanley soon discovered and prevented only by his prompt 
resort to physical arguments. 

At last, they reached the borders of Uyanzi, glad to be 
clear of the land of Ugogo, said to be flowing with milk 
and honey, but which had proved to Stanley a land of 
gall and bitterness. The forest they entered was a welcome 
change from the villages of the Ugogo, and two hours after 
leaving them, they came, with the merry sound of horns, 
to a river in a new district. Continuing on, they made 
the forest ring with cheers, and shouts, and native songs. 



96 AEKIVED AT UNYANYEMBE. 

The country was beautifdl, and the scenery more like cul- 
tivated England in former times than barbaric Africa* 

Passing thus merrily on, they had made twenty miles 
by five o'clock. At one o'clock next morning, the camp 
was roused, and by the light of the moon the march was 
resumed, and at three o'clock arrived at a village to rest 
till dawn. They had reached a land of plenty and fared 
well. Kiti was entered on the 10th of June, where cattle 
and grain could be procured in abundance. 

A valley fifteen miles distant was the next camp, and a 
march of three hours and a half brought them to another 
village, where provisions were very cheap. They were now 
approaching Unyanyembe, their first great stopping-place, 
and where the term of service of many of Stanley's men 
expired. They marched rapidly now — to-day through 
grain-fields, to-morrow past burnt villages, the wreck of 
bloody wars. 

At last, with banners flying and trumpets and horns 
blowing, and amid volleys of small arms, the caravan 
entered Unyanyembe. 

Of the three routes from the coast to this place, Stanley 
discarded the two that had before been traveled by Speke 
and Burton and Grant and chose the third, with the origi- 
nality of an American, and thus saved nearly two hundred 
miles' travel. 

Mr. Stanley, after reaching this first great objective point, 
goes back and gives a general description of the regions he 
has traversed. To the geographer, it may be of interest, 
but not to the general reader. But the following, taken 
from his long account, will give the reader a clear idea of 
the country traversed and of its inhabitants. Beginning 
with Wiami River, emptying into the Indian Ocean near 
Zanzibar, he says : 

" First it appears to me that the Wiami River is avail- 



ADMIRABLE MISSION SITES. 97 

able for commerce, and, by a little improvement, could be 
navigated by liglit-draft steamers near to the Usagara 
Mountains, the healthy region of this part of Africa, and 
which could be reached by steamers in four days from the 
coast, and then it takes one into a country where ivory, 
sugar, cotton, indigo and other productions can be ob- 
tained." 

Besides, he says : 

" Four days by steamer bring the missionary to the 
healthy uplands of Africa, where he can live amongst the 
gentle Wasagara without fear or alarm; where he can 
enjoy the luxuries of civilized life without fear of being 
deprived of them, amid the most beautiful and picturesque 
scenes a poetic fancy could imagine. Here is the greenest 
verdure, purest water; here are valleys teeming with 
grain-stalks, forests of tamarind, mimosa, gum-copal tree ; 
here is the gigantic moule, the stately mparamnsi, the 
beautiful palm ; a scene such as only a tropic sky coders. 
Health and abundance of food are assured to the mission- 
ary ; gentle people are at his feet, ready to welcome him. 
Except civilized society, nothing that the soul of man can 
desire is lacking here. 

" From the village of Kadetamare a score of admirable 
mission sites are available, with line health-giving breezes 
blowing over them, water in abundance at their feet, fer- 
tility unsurpassed around them, with docile, good-tempered 
people dwelling everywhere at peace with each other, and 
all travelers and neighbors. 

" As the passes of the Olympus unlocked the gates of the 
Eastern empires to the hordes of 0th man ; as the passes of 
Kumayle and Sura admitted the British into Abyssinia ; so 
the passes of the Mukondokwa may admit the Gospel and 
its beneficent influences into the heart of savage Africa. 

" I can fancy old Kadetamare rubbing his hands with glee 



98 IMPOETANT KIVEKS. 

at the siglit of the white man coming to teach his people 
the words of the 'Mulungu' — the Sky Spirit; how to 
sow, and reap, and build houses ; how to cure their sick, 
how to make themselves comfortable — in short, how to be 
civilized. But the missionary, to be successful, must 'know 
his duties as well as a thorough sailor must know how to 
reef, hand and steer. He must be no kid-glove, effeminate 
man, no journal writer, no disputatious polemic, no silken 
stole and chasuble-loving priest — ^but a thorough, earnest 
laborer in the garden of the Lord — a man of the David 
Livingstone, or of the Kobert Moffatt stamp, 

" The other river, the Rufiji, or Euhwha, is a still more 
important stream than Wiami. It is a much longer river, 
and discharges twice as much water into the Indian Ocean. 
It rises near some mountains about one hundred miles 
south-west of Nbena. Kisigo River, the most northern 
and most important affluent of the Ruhwha, is supposed to 
flow into it near east longitude thirty-five degrees ; from 
the confluence to the sea, the Ruhwha has a length of four 
degrees of direct longitude. This fact, of itself, must prove 
its importance and rank among the rivers of East Africa. 

" After Zanzibar, our debut into Africa is made via Ba- 
gomayo. At this place we may see Wangindo, Wasawahili, 
Warori, Wagogo, Wanyamwezi, Waseguhha and Wasa- 
gara ; yet it would be a difficult task for any person, at 
mere sight of their dresses or features, to note the differ- 
ences. Only by certain customs or distinctive marks, such 
as tattooing, puncturing of the lobes of the ears, ornaments, 
wearing the hair, etc., which would appear, at first, too 
trivial to note, could one discriminate between the various 
tribal rej)resentatives. There are certainly differences, but 
not so varied or marked as they are reported. 

*' The Wasawahili, of course, through their intercourse 
with semi-civilization, present us with a race, or tribe, in- 



THE PURE BARBARIANS. 99 

fluenced by a state of semi-civilized society, and are, con- 
sequently, better dressed and appear to better advantage 
than their more savage brethren farther west. As it is 
said that underneath the Russian skin lies the Tartar, so 
it may be said that underneath the snowy dish-dasheh, or 
shirt of the Wasawahili, one will find the true barbarian. 
In the street or bazaar he appears semi-Arabized ; his 
suavity of manner, his prostrations and genuflexions, the 
patois he speaks, all prove his contact and affinity with 
the dominant race, whose subject he is. Once out of the 
coast towns, in the Washensi villages, he sheds the shirt 
that had half civilized him, and appears ifi all his deep 
blackness of skin, prognathous jaws, thick lips — the pure 
negro and barbarian. Not keenest eye could detect the 
difference between him and the Washensi, unless his atten- 
tion had been drawn to the fact that the two men were of 
different tribes. 

"The next tribe to which we are introduced are the 
"Wakwere, who occupy a limited extent of country between 
the Wazaramo and the Wadoe. They are the first repre- 
sentatives of the pure barbarian the traveler meets, when 
but two day's journey from the sea-coast. They are a timid 
tribe and a very unlikely people to commence an^ attack 
upon any body of men for mere plunder's sake. They 
have not a, very good reputation among the Arab and 
Wasawahili traders. They are said to be exceedingly dis- 
honest, of which I have not the least doubt. They fur- 
nished me with good grounds for believing these reports 
while encamped at Kingaru, Hera and Imbiki. The 
chiefs of the more eastern part of Ukwere profess nominal 
allegiance to the Dwians of the Mrima. They have se- 
lected the densest jungles wherein to establish their vil- 
lages. Every entrance into one of their valleys is jealously 
guarded by strong wooden gates, seldom over four and a 



100 OBSTACLES OF JUNGLE ISLETS. 

half feet high, and so narrow, sometimes, that one must 
enter sideways. 

" These jungle islets which in particular dot the extent 
of Ukwere, present formidable obstacles to a naked enemy. 
The plants, bushes and young trees which form their 
natural defense, are generally of the aloetic and thorny 
species, growing so dense, interlaced one with the other, 
that the hardiest and most desperate robber would not 
brave the formidable array of sharp thorns which bristle 
everywhere. 

" Some of these jungle islets are infested with gangs of 
banditti, who seldom fail to take advantage of the weak- 
ness of a single wayfarer, more especially if he be a 
Mgwana — a freeman of Zanzibar, as every negro resident 
of the island of Zanzibar is distinguished by the Washensi 
natives of the interior. 

" I should estimate the population of Ukwere, allowing 
about one hundred villages to this territory (which is not 
more than thirty miles square, its bounds on the south 
being the E-ufu River, and on the north the River Wiami), 
at not more than five thousand souls. Were all these 
banded together under the command of one chief, the 
"Wakwere might become a powerful tribe. 

" After the Wakwere we come to the Wakami, a rem- 
nant of a once grand nation, which occupied the lands from 
the Ungerengeri to the Great Makata River. Frequent 
wars with the Wadoe and Waseguhha have reduced them 
to a narrow belt of country, ten rectilinear miles across, 
which may be said to be comprised between Kiva Peak 
and the stony ridge bounding the valley of the Ungeren- 
geri on the east, within a couple of miles from the east 
bank of the river. 

" They are as numerous as bees in the Ungerengeri Val- 
ley. The unsurpassed fertility has been a great inducement 



PICTURESQUE FOREST SCENERY. lOl 

to retain for these people the distinction of a tribe. By the 
means of a spy-glass one may see, as he stands on the top 
of that stony ridge looking down into the fair valley, clus- 
ters of brown huts visible amid bosky clumps, fullness and 
plenty all over the valley, and may count easily over a 
hundred villages. 

" From Ukami, we pass Southern Udoe, and find a war- 
like, fine-looking people, with a far more intelligent cast of 
features, and a shade lighter than the Wakami and Wak- 
were — a people who are full of traditions of race, a people 
who have boldly rushed to war upon the slightest encroach- 
ment upon their territories, and who have bravely defended 
themselves against the Waseguhha and Wakami, as well 
as against nomadic marauders from Uhumba. 

" Udoe, in appearance, is amongst the most picturesque 
countries between the sea and Nyanyembe. Great cones 
shoot upward above the everlasting forest, tipped by the 
light, fleecy clouds, through which the warm, glowing sun 
darts its rays, bathing the whole in sunlight, which brings 
out those globes of foliage, which rise in tier after tier to 
the summits of the hills, colors which would mock the 
most ambitious painter's efforts at imitation. Udoe first 
evokes the traveler's love of natural beauty after leaving 
the sea, her roads lead him up along the sharp spines of 
hilly ridges, whence he may look down upon the forest- 
clad slopes, declining on either side of him into the depths 
of deep valleys, to rise up beyond into aspiring cones 
which kiss the sky, or into a high ridge with deep, con- 
centric folds, which almost tempt one to undergo much 
labor in exploring them for the provoking air of mystery 
in which they seem to be enwrapped. 

" What a tale this tribe could relate of the slave-trader's 
deeds. Attacked by the joint forces of the Waseguhha 
from the west and north, and the slave-traders of Whinde 



102 DISTINCTIVE TRIBAL MARKS. 

and Sa'adani from the east, tlie Wadoe have seen their 
wives and little ones carried into slavery a hundred times, 
and district after district taken from their country and 
attached to Useguhha. For the people of Useguhlia were 
hired to attack their neighbors, the Wadoe, by the Whinde 
slave-traders, and were also armed with muskets and sup- 
j)lied with ammunition by them, to effect large and repeated 
captures of Wadoe slaves. The people of this tribe, es- 
pecially women and children, so suj)erior in physique and 
intelligence to the servile races by which they were sur- 
rounded, were eagerly sought for as concubines and do- 
mestics bv the lustful Mohammedans. 

" This tribe we first note to have distinctive tribal marks 
— ^by a line, punctures extending lengthwise on each side 
of the face, and a chipping of the two inner sides of the 
two middle teeth of the upper row. 

" The arms of this tribe are similar to the arms of the 
Wakami and Wakwere, and consist of a bow and arrows, 
a shield, a couple of light spears or assegais, a long knife, a 
handy little battle-axe and a club with a large knob at the 
end of it, which latter is dexterously swung at the head of 
an enemy, inflicting a stunning and sometimes a fatal blow. 

" Emerging from the forest of Mikeseh, we enter the 
territory of the Waseguhha, or Wasegura, as the Arabs 
wrongly call this country. Useguhha extends over two de- 
grees in length, and its greatest breadth is ninety geo- 
graphical miles. It has two main division^, that of South- 
ern Useguhha, from Uruguni to the Wiami Eiver, and 
Northern Useguhha, under the chieftain Moto, from the 
Wiami River to Umagassi and Usumbara. 

" Mostly all the Waseguhha warriors are armed with 
muskets, and the Arabs supply them with enough ammuni- 
tion, in return for which they attack Waruguru, Wadoe 
and Wakwenni, to obtain slaves for the Arab market, and 



THE MAGIC ART. 103 

it is but five years since the Waseguliha organized a suc- 
cessful raid into the yery heart of the Wasagara Mountains, 
during which they desolated the populated part of the 
Makata plain, capturing over five hundred slaves. For- 
merly wars in this country were caused by blood feuds 
between different chiefs ; they are now encouraged by the 
slave buyers of the Mirma, for the purpose of supj)lying 
these human chattels for the market of Zanzibar. The 
Waseguhha are about the most thorough believers in witch- 
craft, yet the professors of this dark science fare badly at 
their hands. It is a very common sight to see cinereous 
piles on the roadside, and the waving garments suspended 
to the branches of trees above them, which mark the fate 
of the unfortunate 'Waganga' or medicine man. So long 
as their predictions prove correct and have a happy culmi- 
nation, these professors of^^uchawi' — magic art — are re- 
garded with favor by the people; but if an unusual calamity 
overtakes a family, and they can swear that it is the result 
of the magician's art, a quorum of relentless inquisition is 
soon formed, and a like fate to that which overtook the 
* witches' in the dark days of New England surely awaits 
him. 

"Enough dead wood is soon found in their African 
forests, and the unhappy one perishes by fire, and, as a 
warning to all false professors of the art, his loin-cloth is 
hung up to a tree above the spot where he met his doom. 

"In Southern Usagara, the people are most amiable; 
but in the north, in those districts adjacent to the Wahumba, 
the people partake of the ferocious character of their fierce 
neighbors. Repeated attacks from the Waseguhha kid- 
nappers, from the Wadirigo or Wahehe robbers on the 
south-west, from Wagogo on the west and from Wahumba 
on the north, have caused them to regard strangers with 
suspicion ; but after a short acquaintance they prove to be 



104 THE WASAGAEA COSTUMES. 

a frank, amiable and brave people. Indeed, tliej havft 
good cause to be distrustful of the Arabs and the Wang^ 
wana of Zanzibar. Mbumi, Eastern Usagara, lias been 
twice burned down, within a few years, by the Arabian 
Waseguhha kidnappers ; Rehemeko has met the same fate, 
and it was not many years ago since Abdullah bin Nasib 
carried fire and sword from Misonghi to Mpwapwa. 
Kanyaparu, lord of the hills around Chunyo, Kunyo, once 
cultivated one-fourth of the Marenga, Mkali ; but is now 
restricted to the hill-tops, from fear of the Wadirigo ma- 
rauders. 

" The Wasagara, male and female, tattoo the forehead, 
bosom and arms. Besides inserting the neck of a gourd 
in each ear — ^which carries his little store of Humbac' or 
tobacco, and lime, which he has obtained by burning land 
shells — he carries quite a number of primitive ornaments 
around his neck, such as two or three snowy cowrie-shells, 
carved pieces of wood, or a small goat's horn, or some medi- 
cine consecrated by the medicine man of the tribe, a fund 
of red or wdiite beads, or two or three 23ieced Lungomazzi 
egg-beads, or a string of copper coins, and sometimes small 
brass chains, like a cheap Jack watch-chain. These things 
they have either made themselves or purchased from Arab 
traders for chickens or goats. The children all go naked ; 
youths wear a goat or sheep-skin ; grown men and women, 
blessed with progeny, wear domestic or a loin-cloth of 
Kaniki, or a barsati, which is a favorite colored cloth in 
Usagara ; chiefs wear caps such as are worn by the Wam- 
rima Biwans, or the Arab tarboosh. 

" Next on our line of march, appears the Wagogo, a 
powerful race, inhabiting the region west of Usagara to 
Uyanzi, which is about eighty miles in breadth and about 
one hundred in length. 

" The traveler has to exercise great prudence, discretion 



THE MEANmG OF "TRIBUTE.'' 10? 

and judgment in his dealings with them. Here he first 
heard the word 'houga' after passing Limbomwenni, a 
word which signifies tribute, though it formerly meant a 
present to a friend. Since it is exacted from him with 
threats, that if it is not paid they will make war on him, 
its best interpretation would be, * forcibly extorted tribute 
or toll.' 

" Naturally, if the traveler desires to be mulcted of a 
large sum, he will find the Wagogo ready to receive every 
shred of cloth he gives them. Moumi will demand sixty 
cloths, and will wonder at his own magnanimity in asking 
such a small number of cloths from a great Musungu 
(white man). The traveler, however, will be wise if he 
permits his chief men to deal with them, after enjoining 
them to be careful, and not commit themselves too hastily 
to any number. 

" They are, physically and intellectually, the best of the 
races between Unyamwezi and the sea. Their color is a 
rich dark brown. There is something in their frontal 
aspect which is almost leonine. Their faces are broad and 
intelligent. Their eyes are large and round. Their noses 
are flat, and their mouths are. very large ; but their lips, 
though thick, are not so monstrously thick as those our 
exaggerated ideal of a negro has. For all this, though the 
Mgogo is a ferocious man, capable of proceeding to any 
length upon the slightest temptation, he is an attractive 
figure to the white traveler. He is proud of his chief, 
proud of his country, sterile and unlovable though it be ; 
he is proud of himself, his prowess, his weapons and his 
belongings ; he is vain, terribly egotistic, a bully, and a 
tyrant, yet the Mgogo is capable of forming friendships, 
and of exerting himself for friendship's sake. One grand 
vice in his character, which places him in a hostile light 
to travelers, is his exceeding avarice and greed for riches ; 



103 THE CHAKACTER OF THE MGOGO. 

and if the traveler suffers by this, he is not likely to be 
amiably disposed toward him. 

" This sturdy native, with his rich complexion, his lion 
front, his menacing aspect, bullying nature, haughty, proud 
and quarrelsome, is a mere child with a man who will de- 
vote himself to the study of his nature, and not offend his 
vanity. He is easily angered, and his curiosity is easily 
aroused. A traveler with an angular disposition is sure to 
quarrel with him — but, in the presence of this rude child of 
nature, especially when he is so powerful, it is to his ad- 
vantage and personal safety to soften those angles of his own 
nature. The Kigogo 'Eob Eoy' is on his native ground, 
and has a decided advantage over the white foreigner. He 
is not brave, but he is, at least, conscious of the traveler's 
weakness, and he is disposed to take advantage of it, but is 
prevented from committing an act because it is to his ad- 
vantage to keep the peace. Any violence to a traveler 
would close the road ; caravans would seek other ways, and 
the chiefs would be deprived of much of their revenues. 

" The Mgogo warrior carries as his weapons a bow and 
a sheaf of murderous-looking arrows, pointed, pronged and 
barbed; a couple of light, beautifully-made assegais; a 
broad, sword-like spear, with a blade over two feet long ; 
a battle-axe, and a rungu or knob-club. He has also a 
shield, painted with designs in black and white, oval- 
shaped, sometimes of rhinoceros, or elephant, or bull-hide. 
From the time he was a toddling urchin he has been 
familiar with his weapons, and by the time he was fifteen 
years old he was an adept with them. 

"He is armed for battle in a very short time. The 
messenger from the chief darts from village to village, and 
blows his ox-horn, the signal for war. The warrior hears 
it, throws his hoe over his shoulder, enters his house, and 
in a few seconds issues out again, arrayed in war-paint and 



THE MGOGO WAEKIOES. 103 

full fighting costume. Feathers of the ostrich, or the eagle, 
or the vulture nod above his head ; his long crimson robe 
streams behind him, his shield is on his left arm, his darting 
assegai in his left hand, and his ponderous man-cleaver — 
double-edged and pointed, heading a strong staff — is in his 
right hand ; jingling bells are tied around his ankles and 
knees ; ivory wristlets are on his arms, with which he sounds 
his approach. With the plodding peasant's hoe he has 
dropped the peasant's garb, and is now the proud, vain, 
exultant warrior — bounding aloft like a gymnast, eagerly 
sniffing the battle-field. The strength and power of the 
Wagogo are derived from their numbers. 

" Though caravans of Wagogo are sometimes found pass- 
ing up and down the Unyamwezi road, they are not so 
generally employed as the Wanyamwezi, in trade. Their 
villages are thus always full of warriors. Weak tribes, or 
remnants of tribes are very glad to be admitted under their 
protection. Individuals of other tribes, also, who have 
been obliged to exile themselves from their own tribes, for 
some deed of violence, are often found in the villages of the 
Wagogo. In the north, the Wahumba are very numerous ; 
in the south may be found the Wahehe and Wakimbu, and 
in the east may be found many a family from Usagara. 
Wanyamwi are also frequently found in this country. 
Indeed, these latter people are like Scotchmen, they may 
be found almost everywhere throughout Central Africa, 
and have a knack of pushing themselves into prominence. 

"As in Western Usagara, the houses of the Wagogo are 
square, arranged around the four sides of an area — to which 
all the doors open. The roofs are all flat, on which are 
spread the grain, herbs, tobacco and pumpkins. The back 
of each department is pierced with small holes for observa- 
tion and for defense. 

" The tembe is a fragile affair as constructed in Ugogo ; 



110 THE MGOGO HOUSE. 

it merely consists of a line of slender sticks daubed over 
with mud, with three or four strong poles planted at inter- 
vals to support the beams and rafters, on which rests the 
flat clay roof. A musket-ball j)ierces the wattled walls of 
a Kigogo tembe through and through. In Uyanzi, the 
tembe is a formidable affair, because of the abundance of 
fine trees, which are cut down and split into rails three or 
four inches thick. 

^^ The tembe is divided into apartments, separated from 
each other by a wattled wall. Each apartment may con- 
tain a family of grown-up boys and girls, who form their 
beds on the. floor, out of dressed hides. The father of the 
family, only, has a kitanda, or fixed cot, made of ox-hide, 
stretched over a frame, or of the bark of the myombo tree. 
The floor ^s of tamped mud, and is exceedingly filthy, 
smelling strongly of every abomination. In the corners, 
suspended to the rafters, are the fine, airy dwellings of 
black spiders of very large size, and other monstrous in- 
sects. 

" Eats, a peculiarly long-headed, dun-colored species, in- 
fest every tembe. Cows, goats, sheep and cats are the only 
domestic animals permitted to dwell within the tembe. 

" The Wagogo believe in the existence of a God, or sky 
spirit, whom they call Mulungu. Their prayers are gen- 
erally directed to him when their parents die. A Mgogo, 
after he has consigned his father to the grave, collects his 
father's chattels together, his cloth, his ivory, his knife, his 
jeinbe (hoe), his bows and arrows, his spear and his cattle, 
and kneels before them, repeating a wish that Mulungu 
would increase his worldly wealth, that he would bless his 
labors and make him successful in trade. They venerate, 
and often perform a dance in honor of the moon. 

'^The following conversation occurred between myself 
and a Mgogo trader : 



MODE OF BURIAL. 113 

** ' Wlio do you suppose made your parents ?' 

" ' Why, Mulungu, white man/ 

*' ^ Well, who made you V 

" * If God made my father, God made me, didn^t He?' 

'" ' That's very good. Where do you suppose your father 
has gone to, now that he is dead V 

•'* * The dead die,' said he, solemnly, * they are no more. 
The sultan dies, he becomes nothing — he is then no better 
than a dead dog ; he is finished, his words are finished — 
there are no words from him. It is true,' he added, seeing 
a smile on my face, ' the sultan becomes nothing. He who 
says other words is a liar. There.' 

" ' But then he is a very great man, is he not?' 

" * While he lives only — after death he goes into the pit, 
and there is no more to be said of him than any other 
man.' 

" ^ How do you bury a Mgogo ?' 

" * His legs are tied together, his right arm to his body, 
and his left is put under his head. He is then rolled on 
his left side in the grave. His cloth he wore during his 
life is spread over him. We put the earth over him, and 
put thorn-bushes over it, to prevent the fize (hyena) from 
getting at him. A woman is put on her right side in a 
grave apart from the man.' 

^^ ' What do you do with the sultan, when he is dead ?' 

" * We bury him, too, of course ; only he is buried in the 
middle of the village, and we build a house over it. Each 
time they kill an ox, they kill before his grave. When 
the old sultan dies, the new one calls for an ox, and kills 
it before his grave, calling on Mulungu to witness that he 
is the ri2:htful sultan. He then distributes the meat in his 
father's name.' 

" ' Who succeeds the sultan ? Is he the eldest son ?' 

** * Yes, if he has a son ; if childless, the great chief next 
7 



114 . THEIR CODE OF JUSTICE. 

to him in rank. The msagira is the next to the sultan, 
whose business it is to hear the cause of complaint, and 
convey it to tlie sultan, who, through the sultan, dispenses 
justice , he receives the honga, carries it to the mtemi (sul- 
tan), places it before him, and when the sultan has taken 
what he wishes, the rest goes to the msagiri. The chiefs 
are called manya-|)ara; the msagiri is the chief manya- 
para.' 

" ' How do the Wagogo marry T 

" ' Oh, they buy their women.' 

" ' What is a woman worth T 

" ^ A very poor man can buy his wife from her father 
for a couple of goats.' 

" ' How much has the sultan got to pay ?' 

" * He has got to j)ay about one hundred goats, or so 
^many cows, so many sheep and goats, to his bride's father. 
Of course, he is a chief. The sultan would not buy a com- 
mon woman. The father's consent is to be obtained, and 
the cattle have to be given up. It takes many days to 
finish the talk about it. All the family and friends of the 
bride have to talk about it before she leaves her father's 
house.' 

" ^ In cases of murder, what do you do to the man fhat 
kills another ?' . 

" ' The murderer has to pay fifty cows. If he is too yx)or 
to pay, the sultan gives permission to the murdered man's 
friends or relatives to kill him. If they catch him, they 
tie him to a tree, and throw spears at him — one at a time 
first ; they then spring on him, cut his head off, then his 
arms and limbs, and scatter them about the country.' 

" * How do you punish a thief?! 

" ' If he is found stealing, he is killed at once, atid 
nothing is said about it. Is he not a thief?' 

'* 'But, suppose you do not know who the thief is?' . 



BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT. 11? 

" * If a man is brought before us accused of stealing, we 
till a chicken. If the entrails are white, he is innocent ; 
if yellow, he is guilty.' 

" ' Do you believe in witchcraft ?' 

" * Of course we do, and punish the man with death who 
bewitches cattle or stops rain.' 

" Sacrifices of human life as penalty for witchcraft and 
kindred superstitions — indeed for many trivial offences — 
a,re painfully numerous among nearly all the tribes. 

" Next to Ugogo is Uyanzi, or the * Magunda Mkali ' — 
the Hot Field. 

" Uyanzi or Magunda Mkali is at present very populous. 
Along the northern route — that leading via Munieka— 
water is plentiful enough, villages are frequent and travelers 
begin to perceire that the title is inappropriate. The people 
who inhabit the country are Wakimbu from the south. 
They are good agriculturists, and are a most industrious 
race. They are something like the Wasagara in appear- 
ance, but do not obtain a very high reputation for bravery. 
Their weapons consist of light spears, bows and arrows, 
and battle-axes. Their tembes are strongly made, showing 
considerable skill in the art of defensive construction. 
Their bomas are so well made, that one would require can- 
non to effect an entrance, if the villages were at all defended. 
They are skillful, also, in constructing traps for elephants 
and buffaloes. A stray lion or leopard is sometimes caught 
by them." 



CHAPTEE VII. 

BECEPTION IN UNYAXYEMBE— HIS HOUSE— REPORTS OF THE CHIEFS OF HIS CARAVANS— A FEAST 
— LUXURIOL'S LIVING OF THE ARABS — ARAB COUNTRY— WAR AGAIN.ST MIRAMBO, IN WHICH 
STANLEY BECOMES AN ALLY— IS TAKEN SICK— BOJIBAY THRASHED— STANLEY JOINS THE ARAB. 
ARMY— Capture of MIRAMBO'S stronghold— villages laid waste— MIRAMBO'S REVENGE — 
ARABS DEFEATED AND STANLEY LEFT ALONE— IS SICK— FINAL DEPARTURE— HIS INDOrilTABLE 
WILL AND COURAGE— A TOUCHING EXTRACT FROM HIS JOURNAL— DESERTERS— SHAW, THE LAST- 
WHITE MAN, LEFT BEHIND— CORPSES ON THE ROAD— MOLLIFIES A SULLEN CHIEF— STBONO- 
MEDICINE— A LUDICROUS SCENE— THE PARADISE OF HUNTERS— A RIGHT ROYAL HUNT. 

STANLEY received a noiseless ovation in Unyanyem- 
be as he walked with the governor to his house. Sol- 
diers and men, by the hundreds, hovered round their 
chief, staring at him, while the - naked children peered be- 
tween the legs of the parents. Tea was served in a silver 
tea-pot, and a sumptuous breakfast furnished, which Stan- 
ley devoured only as a hungry man can, who has been shut 
up for so many months in the wilds of Africa. 

Then pipes and tobacco were produced, and amid the 
whiffs of smoke, came out all the news that Stanley had 
brought' from Zanzibar, while the gratified sheikh smoked 
and listened. When Stanley took his leave to look after 
his men his host accompanied him to show him the house 
he was to occupy while he remained. It was commodious 
and quite luxurious after his long life in a tent. 

All the caravans had arrived, and he received the re- 
ports of the chief of each, while the goods were unpacked 
and examined. One had had a fight with the natives and 
beaten them, aaother had shot a thief, and the fourth had 
lost a bale of goods. On the whole, Stanley was satisfied 
and thankful there had been no more serious misfortunes 

118 



THE ARAB CHIEFS VISIT STANLEY. 119 

Food was furnished with lavish prodigality, and while he 
was surfeiting himself, he ordered a bullock to he slain for 
his men, now reduced to twenty-five in number. 

On the second day of his arrival, the chief Arabs of 
Tabna came to visit him. This is the chief Arab settlement 
of Central Africa, and contains a thousand huts and about 
^ye thousand inhabitants. The Arabs are a fine, handsome 
set of men, and, living amid rich pastures, raise large herds 
of cattle and goats, and vegetables of all kinds, while their 
slaves bring back in caravans from Zarfzibar, the luxuries 
of the East, not only coffee, spices, wines and salmon, etc., 
but Persian carpets, rich bedding, with elegant table ser- 
vice. Some of them sport gold watches and chains. Each 
one keeps as many concubines as he can afford — the size of 
his harem being limited only by his means. 

These magnates from Tabna, after finishing their visit, 
invited Stanley to visit their town and partake of a feast 
they had prepared for him. Three days after, escorted by 
eighteen of his men, he returned the visit. He arrived in 
time to attend a council of war which was heing held, as to 
the hest manner of asserting their rights against a robber- 
chief named Miramho. He had carried war through seve- 
ral tribes and claimed the right to waylay and rob Arab 
caravans. This must be stopped, and it was resolved to 
make war against him in his stronghold. Stanley agreed 
to accompany them, taking his caravan a part of the way 
and leaving it until Mirambo was defeated, and the way to 
Ujiji cleared. 

Returning to Unyanyeinbe, he found the caravan which 
had been made up to carry supplies to Livingstone in No- 
vember 1st, 1870. Having gone twenty-five miles from 
Zanzibar, to Bagomayo, it had stayed there one hundred 
days, when, hearing that the English consul was coming, 
had started off in affright just previous to Stanley. 



120 BOMBAY THRASHED. 

Whether owing to his great change in diet or some other 
cause, Stanley was now stricken down with fever, and for 
a week tossed in delirium. Selim, his faithful servant, took 
care of him. When he had recovered, the latter was 
seized with it. 

But by the 29th of July, all the sick had recovered, and 
the caravan was loaded up for Ujiji. But Bombay was 
absent and they had to wait from eight o'clock till two in 
the afternoon, he stubbornly refusing to leave his mistress. 
When he arrived and was ordered to his place he made a 
savage reply. The next moment Stanley's cane was falling 
like lightning on his shoulders. The poor fellow soon 
cried for mercy. The order "March" was then given, and 
tlie guide, with forty armed men behind him, led off, with 
flags streaming. At first, in dead silence, they moved 
on, but soon struck up a monotonous sort of chorus, which 
S(3emed to consist mostly of " Hoy, hoy," and was kept up 
all day. The second day, he arrived at Masangi, where he 
was told the Arabs were waiting for him at Mfuto, six 
hours' march distant. The next morning, he arrived at 
tlie place where the Arab army was gathered, numbering 
in all two thousand two hundred and twenty-five men, of 
these, fifteen hundred were armed with guns. With ban- 
ners flying and drums beating, they, on the 3d of August, 
marched forth, but in a few hours, Stanley was stricken 
down with fever. The next day, however, the march was 
resumed, and at eleven o'clock Zimbize, the stronghold of 
the enemy, came in view. The forces quickly surrounded 
it. A general assault followed and the village was cap- 
tured, the inhabitants fleeing toward the mountains, pursued 
closely by the yelling Arabs. Only twenty dead bodies 
were found within. The next day, two more villages were 
burned, and the day after, a detachment of &ye hundred 
strong scoured the country around, carrying devastation 



HEPOKT OF FARQUHAE's DEATH. 121 

and ruin in their path. At this critical period of the cam- 
paign, Stanley was again taken down with fever, and while 
he lay in his hammock, news came that the detachment of 

five hundred men had been surprised and killed. Mirambo 

J. 

had turned and ambushed them, and now the boasting of the 
morning was turning into despondency. The women made 
the night hideous with shrieks and lamentations over their 
slain husbands. The next day, there was a regular stam- 
pede of the Arabs, and when Stanley was able to get out 
of his tent only seven men were left to him — all the rest 
had returned to Mffcu, and soon after to Tabna, twenty-five 
miles distant. It was plain that it was useless to open the 
direct road to Ujiji, which lay through Mirambo's district. 
In fact, it seemed impossible to get there at all, and the 
only course left open was to return to the coast and abandon 
the project of reaching Livingstone altogether. But what 
would Livingstone do locked up at Ujiji? He might per- 
haps go north and meet Baker, who was moving, with a 
strong force, southward. But he was told by a man that 
Livingstone was coming to Nyano Lake toward the Tanga- 
nika, on which Ujiji is situated, at the very time it was last 
reported he was murdered. He was then walking, dressed 
in American sheeting, having lost all his cloth in Lake 
Leemba. He had a breech-loading double-barreled rifle 
with him and two revolvers. Stanley felt that he could 
not give ' up trying to reach him, now it was so probable 
that he was within four hundred miles of him. 

On the 13th, a caravan came in from the east and Re- 
ported Farquhar dead at the place where he had left him. 
Ten days after, Mirambo attacked Tabna and set it on fire. 
Stanley, at this time, was encamped at Kwihara, and in 
sight of the burning town. The refugees came pouring in, 
and Stanley, finding the men willing to stand by him, 
began to prepare for defense, and counting up his little 



122 Stanley's last desperate attempt. 

force, found he had one hundred and fifty men. He was 
not attacked, however, and five days after, Mirambo re- 
treated. The Arabs held councils of war and urged Stan- 
ley to become their ally, but he refused, and finally took 
the bold resolution of organizing a flying caravan, and 
by a southern route and quick marching, reach Ujiji. 
This was August 27th, and the third month he had been 
in Unyanyembe. Having got together some forty men in 
all, he gave a great banquet to them prior to their de- 
parture, but an attack of fever caused him to postpone it. 
But, on the 20th of September, though too weak to travel, 
he mustered his entire force outside the town, and found 
that, by additional men which the Arabs had succeeded in 
securing, it now numbered fifty-four men. When all was 
ready, Bombay was again missing, and when found and 
brought up, excused himself, as of old, by saying he was 
bidding his " misses " good-bye. As he seemed inclined 
to pick a quarrel with Stanley, the latter not being in the 
most amiable mood, and wishing to teach the others a 
lesson, gave him a sound thrashing. 

Soon, everything being ready, the w^ord "march" passed 
down the line, and Stanley started on his last desperate 
attempt to push on to Ujiji — not much farther than from 
Albany to Buffalo as the crpw flies — but by the way he 
would be compelled to go, no one knew how far, nor what 
time it would take to reach it. But Stanley had good 
reason to believe that Livingstone was alive, and from the 
reports he could get of his movements, must this time be 
at or near Ujiji, and therefore to Ujiji he w^as determined 
to go, unless death stopped his progress. He had been 
sent on a mission, and although the conditions were not 
that he should surmount impossibilities, he would come as 
near to it as human effort could approach. Though sick 
with fever, and with that prostration and utter loss of will 



Stanley's tenacity of puepose. 12:? 

accompanying it, he, nevertheless, with tl:at marvelous 
energy that is never exhibited exce|)t in rare exceptional 
characters, kept his great object in view. That never lost 
its hold on him under the most disastrous circumstances — 
neither in the delirium of fever nor in the utter prostration 
that followed it This tenacity of purpose and indomitable 
will ruling and governing him, where in all other men it 
would have had no power, exhibit the extraordinary quali- 
ties of this extraordinary man. We do not believe that 
he himself was fully aware of this inherent power, this fix- 
edness of purpose that makes him different from all other 
men. No man possessing it is conscious of it any more 
than an utterly fearless man is conscious of his own cour- 
age. The following touching extract from his journal at 
this time lets in a flood of lisiht on the character and the 
inner life of this remarkable man : 

"About 10 P. M., the fever had gone. All were asleep 
in the tembe but myself, and an unutterable loneliness came 
on me as I reflected on my position, and my intentions, and 
felt the utter lack of sympathy with me in all around. 
Even my own white assistant, with whom I had striven 
hard, was less sympathizing than my little black boy Ka- 
lulu. It requires more nerve than I possess to dispel all 
the dark presentiments that come upon the mind. But, 
probably, what I call presentiments are simply the impress 
on the mind of the warnings which these false-hearted 
Arabs have rejDcated so often. This melancholy and lone- 
liness which I feel, may probably have their origin from 
the same cause. The single candle which barely lights up 
the dark shade which fills the corners of my room, is but 
a poor incentive to cheerfulness. I feel as though I were 
imprisoned between stone walls. But why should I feel as 
if baited by these stupid, slow-witted Arabs, and their warn- 
ings and croakings? I fancy a suspicion haunts my mind, 
as I write, that there lies some motive behind all this. 



124 A TOUCHING EXTRACT. 

'^ I wonder if these Arabs tell me all these things to keep 
me liere, in the hope that I may be induced another time 
to assist them in their war against Mirambo ! If they 
think so, they are much mistaken, for I have taken a 
solemn, enduring oath — an oath to be kept while the least 
hope of life remains in me — not to be tempted to break the 
resohition I have formed, never to give up the search until 
I find Livingstone alive, or find his dead body ; and never 
to return home without the strongest possible proofs that 
he is alive or that he is dead. No living man or living 
men shall stoj) me — only death can prevent me. But 
death — not even this ; I shall not die — I will not die — I 
cannot die ! 

"And something tells me, I do not know what it is — 
perhaps it is the everliving hopefulness of my own nature ; 
perhaps it is the natural j)resumption born out of an 
abundant and glowing vitality, or the outcome of an over- 
weening confidence in one's-self — anyhow and everyhow, 
something tells me to-night I shall find him, and — write it 
larger — Find him ! Find him ! Even the words are in- 
spiring. I feel more happy. Have I uttered a prayer ? 
] shall sleep, calmly to-night.'' 

There is nothing in this whole terribly journey so touch- 
ing, and revealing so much, as this extract from his jour- 
nal does. It shows that he is human, and yet far above 
common human weakness. Beset with difficulties, his only 
white companion dead or about to be left behind, the Arabs 
themselves and the natives telling him he cannot go on, left 
all alone in a hostile country, his inen deserting him, he 
pauses and ponders. To make all these outer conditions 
darker, he is smitten down with fever that saps the energies, 
unnerves the heart and fills the imagination with gloomy 
forebodings, and makes the soul sigh for rest. It is the 
lowest pit of despondency into which a man may be cast. 



TWENTY MEN DESERT. 125 

He feels it, and all alone, fever worn and sad, he surveys the 
prospect before him. There is not a single soul on which 
to lean — not a sympathizing heart to turn to while fever is 
burning up his brain, and night, moonless and starless, is 
settling down around him. He would be less than human 
not to feel the desolation of his position, and for a moment 
sink under this accumulation of disastrous circumstances* 
He does feel how utterly hopeless and sad is his condition; 
and all through the first part of this entry in his journal, 
there is something that sounds like a mournful refrain — 
yet at its close, out of his gloomy surroundings, up from his 
feverish bed speaks the brave heart in .trumpet tones, 
showing the indomitable will that nothing can break, cry- 
ing out of the all-en veloj^ing gloom, "tio living man or 
living men shall stop me — only death can prevent me." 
There sj^oke one of the few great natures God has made. 
The closing words of that entry in his journal ring like a 
bugle-note from his sick-bed, and foretell his triumph. 

But, at last, they were off. Shaw, the last white man left 
to Stanley, had been sick, and apparently indifferent whether 
he lived or died ; but all, after a short march, became en- 
livened, and things looked more promising. But Stanley 
was again taken sick with the fever ; the men began to be 
discouraged. Staggering from his sick-bed, he found that 
twenty of his men had deserted. Aroused at this new 
danger, he instantly dispatched twenty men after them, 
while he sent his faithful follower, Selim, to an Arab chief 
to borrow a long slave-chain. At night, the messengers 
returned with nine of the missing men. Stanley then told 
them that he had never used the slave-chain, but now he 
should on the first deserters. He had resolved to go to 
Ujiji, where he believed Dr. Livingstone was, and being so 
near the accomplishment of the mission he was sent on, he 
was ready to resort to any measures rather than fail. Deferr- 



126 SHAW LEFT I3EHII!^D. 

ing the use of the chain at present, he started forward and 
encamped at Iresaka. In the morning, two more men 
were missing. Irritated but determined, this resolute man 
halted, sent back for the fugitives, caught them, and when 
brought back, flogged them severely and chained them. 
Kotwithstanding this severe treatment, the next morning 
another man deserted, while, to add to his perplexities and 
enhance the difficulties that surrounded him, a man who 
had accompanied him all the way from the coast asked to 
be discharged, while several others of the expedition were 
taken sick and unable to proceed; and it seemed, notwith- 
standing the resolute will of the leader, that the expedition 
must break up. But, fortunately, that evening men who 
had been in caravans to the coast entered the village 
where they were encamped, with wondrous stories of what 
they had seen on the coast, which revived the spirits of all, 
and the next morning they started off, and after three 
hours* march through the forest came to Kigandu. Shaw, 
the last white man now left to him, between real and 
feigned sickness, had become such a burden, that he deter- 
mined to leave him behind, as the latter had often requested 
to be. 

That night, the poor wretch played on an old accordion 
**Home, Sweet Home," which, miserable as it was, stirred 
the depths of Stanley's heart, now about to be left alone 
amid Arabs and natives in the most desperate part of his 
undertaking. But it could not be heljDcd — speed was now 
everything on this new route, or Mirambo would close it 
also. So on the morning of the 27th, he ordered the horn 
to sound " get ready," and Shaw being sent back to Kwi- 
hara, set off on his southern unknown route to Ujiji with 
his caravan, and entered the dark forests and pressed rap- 
idly forward, and in seven hours reached the village of 
Cgunda, numbering two thousand souls. It was well forti- 



Stanley's diplomacy. 127 

fied against the robber, Mirambo. Around their principal 
village, some three thousand square acres were under culti- 
vation, giving them not only all the provisions they wanted 
for their ow^n use, but also enough for passing caravans, 
besides furnishing carriers for those in want of them. On 
the 28 th, they arrived at a small village well supplied with 
corn, and the next day reached Kikuru, a place impreg- 
nated with the most deadly of African fevers. Over desert 
plains, now sheering on one side to avoid the corpse of a 
man dead from the small-pox, the scourge of Africa, and 
now stumbling on a skeleton, the caravan kept on till they 
<3ame to the cultivated fields of Manyara. A wilderness 
one hundred and thirty-five miles in extent stretched out 
before them from this place, and Stanley was inclined to 
be very conciliatory toward the chief of the village, in 
order to get provisions for the long and desperate march 
before him. But the chief was very sullen and wholly 
indifferent to the presents the white m^n ofiered him. 
With adroit diplomacy, Stanley sent to him some magnifi- 
cent royal cloths, which so mollified the chief that abundant 
provisions were soon sent in, followed by the chief himself 
with fifty warriors bearing gifts quite equal to those which 
Stanley sent him, and they entered the tent of the first 
white man they had ever seen. Looking at him for some 
time in silent surprise, the chiefs burst into an incontrollable 
fit of laughter, accompanied with snapping their fingers. 
But when they w^ere shown the sixteen-shooters and 
revolvers their astonishment knew no bounds, while the 
double-barreled guns, heavily charged, made them jump to 
their feet with alarm, followed by convulsions of laughter. 
Stanley then showed them his chest of medicine, and 
finally gave them a dose in the form of brandy. They 
tasted it, making wry faces, when he produced a bottle of 
concentrated ammonia, saying it was for snake bites. One 



128 THE hunter's paradise. 

of the chiefs asked for some of it. It was suddenly pre* 
sented to his nose, when his features underwent such inde- 
scribable contortions that the other chiefs burst into con- 
vulsions of laughter, clapped their hands, pinched each 
other and went through all sorts of ludicrous gesticulations. 
When the chief recovered himself, the tears in the mean- 
while rolling down his cheeks, he laughed and simply said^ 
" strong medicine." The others then took a sniflp and went 
off into paroxysms of laughter. 

Wednesday, October 4th, found ttem traveling toward 
the Gombe River. They had hardly left the waving corn- 
fields, when they came in sight of a large herd of zebras* 
Passing on, the open forest resembled a magnificent park, 
filled with buffalo, zebra, giraffe, antelope and other tropi- 
cal animals, while the scenery on every side was entrancing. 
These noble animals, coursing in their wild freedom 
through those grand, primeval forests, presented a mag- 
\iificent sight Stanley, thoroughly aroused, crept back to 
his camp, which had been pitched on the Gombe Kiver^ 
and prepared for a right royal hunt. He says : 

" Here, at last, was the hunter's paradise ! How j)etty 
and insignificant appeared my hunts after small antelope 
and wild boar ; what a foolish waste of energies, those long 
walks through damp grasses and thorny jungles. Did I 
not well remember my first bitter experience in African 
jungles, when in the maritime region ? But this — where 
is the nobleman's park that can match this, scene ? Here is 
a soft, velvety expanse of young grass, grateful shade under 
close, spreading clumps, herds of large and varied game 
browsing within easy rifle-shot. Surely I must feel amply 
compensated now for the long southern detour I have 
made, when such a prospect as this opens to the view ! No 
thorny jungles and rank-smelling swamps are to daunt the 
hunter, and to sicken his aspirations after true sport. No 



STALKING ANTELOPE. 131 

hunter could aspire after a nobler field to display his 
prowess. 

" Having settled the position of the camp, which over- 
looked one of the pools found in the depression of the 
Gombe Creek, I took my double-barreled smooth bore, and 
sauntered off to the park-land. Emerging from behind a 
clump, three fine, plump 'spring-bok were seen browsing 
on the young grass just within one hundred yards. I knelt 
down and fired ; one unfortunate antelope bounded forward 
instinctively and fell dead. Its companions sprang high 
into the air, taking leaps about twelve feet in length, as if 
they were quadrupeds practising gymnastics, and away 
they vanished, rising up like India-rubber balls, until a 
knoll hid^ them from view. My success was hailed with 
loud shouts by the soldiers, who came running out from 
the camp as soon as they heard the reverberation of the 
gun, and my gun-bearer had his knife at the throat of the 
beast, uttering a fervent ^Bismillah' as he almost severed 
the head from the body. 

^* Hunters were now directed to proceed east and north 
to procure meat, because in each caravan it generally hap- 
pens that there are fundi whose special trade it is to hunt 
for meat for the camp. Some of these are experts in stalk- 
ing, but often find themselves in dangerous positions, owing 
to the near approach necessary before they can fire their 
most inaccurate weapons with any certainty. 

'^ After luncheon, consisting of spring-bok steak, hot 
corn-cake and a cup of Mocha coffee, I strolled toward the 
south-west, accompanied by Kalulu and Majwara, two boy 
gun-bearers. The tiny perpusilla started up like rabbits 
from me as I stole along through the underbrush ; the 
honey-bird hopped from tree to tree chirping its call, as if 
it thought I was seeking the little sweet treasure, the hiding- 
place of which it only knew ; but, no ! I neither desired 



132 SHOOTING A ZEBEA. 

perpusilla nor the honey. I was on the search for some- 
thing great this day. Keen-eyed fish-eagles and bustard* 
poised on trees above the sinuous Gonibe thought, and pro^ 
bably with good reason, that I was after them, judging by 
the ready flight with which both species disappeared as 
they sighted my approach. Ah, no! nothing but harte 
beest, zebra, giraffe, eland and l^uffalo this day. 

" After following the Gombe^s course for about a mile, 
delighting my eyes with long looks at the broad and 
lengthy reaches of water, to which I was so long a stranger^ 
I came upon a scene which delighted the innermost 
recesses of my soul ; five, six, seven, eight, ten zebras 
switching their beautiful striped bodies, and biting one 
another, within about one huadred and fifty yards. The 
scene was so pretty, so romantic, never did I so thoroughly 
realize that I was in Central Africa. I felt momentarily 
proud that I owned such a vast dominion, inhabited by 
such noble beasts. Here I possessed, within reach of a 
leaden ball, any one I chose of the beautiful animals, th^ 
pride of the African forests. It was at my option to shoot 
any one of them. Mine they were, without money and 
without price ; yet, knowing this, twice I dropped my rifle^ 
loath to wound the royal beasts, but — crack ! and a royal 
one was on his back, battling the air with his legs. Ah, 
it was such a pity ! but hasten, draw the keen, sharp-edged 
knife across the beautiful stripes which fold around the 
throat, and — what an ugly gash ! it is done, and I have a 
su^Derb animal at my feet. Hurrah ! I shall taste of Uko- 
nongo zebra to-night. 

" I thought a spring-bok and zebra enough for one day's 
sport, especially after a long march. The Gombe, a long 
stretch of deep water, winding in and out of green groves, 
calm, placid, with lotus leaves resting lightly on its surface, 
all pretty, picturesque, peaceful as a summer's dream, looked 



A NARROW ESCAPE. 133 

very inviting for a bath. I sought out the most shady spot 
under a wide-spreading mimosa, from which the ground 
) sloped smooth as a lawn to the still, clear water. I ven- 
tured to undress, and had already stepped to my ankles in 
fthe water, and had brought my hands together for a glori- 
ous dive, when my attention was attracted by an enor- 
mously long body which shot into view, occupying the 
spot beneath the surface which I was about to explore by a 
^header.' Great heavens, it was a crocodile! I sprang 
back instinctively, and this proved my salvation, for the 
monster turned away with the most disappointed look, and 
I was left to congratulate myself upon my narrow escape 
from his jaws, and to register a vow never to be tempted 
again by the treacherous calm of an African river." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A BEAUTIFUL PICTUKE— A MUTINY— NARROW ESCAPE OF STANLEY— SAVED BY HIS PROMPT COITB- 
AGE— SWIFT PUNISHMENT OF THE LEADERS OF THE MUTINY— EXCITING NEWS FROM UJIJI— DIF- 
FICULTIES IN THE WAY— RESOLVES TO GO ROUND THE NEXT VILLAGE— STEALTHY MARCHING — 
A NEW DANGER — VAIN ATTEMPT TO STOP A WOMAN SCREAMING — RAPID MARCHING— STANLEY 
STARTLED BY THE SOUND OF WAVES BURSTING IN ROCKY CAVERNS— AN UNEXPECTED DANGER 
—NARROW ESCAPE— THE END APPROACHES— HURRAH. 

THE following extract from his journal, written up that 
night, shows that this strong, determined, fearless 
man was not merely a courageous lion, but possessed, also, 
the eye of an artist and the soul of a poet. With a few 
strokes of his jien, he sketches a picture on the banks of 
the forest-lined river, full of life and beauty : 

" The adventures of the day were over ; the azure of the 
sky had changed to a deep gray ; the moon was appearing 
just over the trees ; the water of the Gombe was like a 
silver belt; hoarse frogs bellowed their notes loudly by 
the margin of the creek ; the fish-eagles uttered their dirge- 
like cries as they were perched high on the tallest trees ; 
elands snorted their warning to the herd in the forest; 
stealthy forms of the carnivora stole through the dark 
woods outside of our camp. Within the high inclosure of 
bush and thorn which we had raised about our camp, all 
was jollity, laughter and radiant, genial comfort. Around 
every camp-fire, dark forms of men were seen squatted: 
one man gnawed at a luscious bone ; another sucked the 
rich marrow in a zebra's leg bone; another turned the 
stick, garnished with huge kabobs, to the bright blaze; 
another held a large rib over a flame ; there were others 

134 



A MUTINY. 135 

busy stirring, industriously, great black potfuls of ugali, 
and watching anxiously the meat simmering, and the soup 
bubbling, while the firelight flickered and danced bravely, 
and cast a bright glow over the naked forms of the men, 
and gave a crimson tinge to the tall tent that rose in the 
centre of the camp, like a temple sacred to some mysteri- 
ous god ; the fires cast their reflections upon the massive 
arms of the trees, as they branched over our camp ; and, 
in the dark gloom of their foliage, the most fantastic 
shadows were visible. Altogether, it was a wild, romantic 
and impressive scene." 

They halted here for two days, the men hunting and 
gormandizing. Like all animals, after gorging themselves 
they did not want to move, and when, on the 7th of Octo- 
ber, Stanley ordered the caravan to be put in motion, the 
men refused to stir. Stanley at once walked swiftly toward 
them with his double-barreled gun, loaded with buck shot, 
in his hand. As he did so he saw the men seize their 
guns. He, however, kept resolutely on till within thirty 
yards of two men, whose heads were peering above an ant- 
hill, with their guns pointed across the road — then sud- 
denly halting, he took deliberate aim at them, determined, 
come what would, to blow out their brains. One of them, 
a giant, named Azmani, instantly brought up his gun with 
his finger on the trigger. " Drop that gun or you are a 
dead man," shouted Stanley. They obeyed and came for- 
ward, but he saw that murder was in Azmani's eyes. The 
other man, at the second order, laid 'down his gun and, 
with a blow from Stanley that sent him reeling away, sneaked 
ofil But the giant, Azmani, refused to obey, and Stanley 
aiming his piece at his head and touching the trigger was 
about to fire. The former quickly lifted his gun up to his 
shoulder to shoot. In another second he would have fallen" 
dead at Stanley's feet. At this moment an Arab, who had 



136 Stanley's naerow escape. 

approached from behind, struck up the wretch's gun and 
exclaimed, " Man, how dare you point your gun at the 
master?" This saved his life, and perhaps Stanley's also. It 
required nerves of iron in a man thus to stand up all alone 
in the heart of an African forest surrounded by savages 
and d^fy them all, and cow them all. But the trouble was 
over, peace was concluded, and the men with one accord 
agreed to go on. The two instigators of this mutiny were 
Bombay and a savage, named Ambari. Snatching up a 
spear Stanley immediately gave the former a terrible 
pounding with the handle. Then turning on the latter, 
who stood looking on with a mocking face, he administered 
the same punishment to him — after which he put them 
both in chains. 

For the next fourteen days, nothing remarkable occurred 
in the march, which had been in a south-westerly direction. 
Near a place called Mrera, Stanley, for the first time, saw a 
herd of wild elephants, and was deeply impressed with their 
lordly appearance. Here Selim was taken sick, and the 
caravan halted for three days, Stanley spending the inter- 
val in mending his shoes. 

He now had four districts to traverse, which would oc- 
cupy him twenty-five days. Taking a north-westerly route 
having, as he thought, got around the country of Mirambo, 
he pushed forward with all speed. Buffaloes, leopards and 
lions were encountered; the country was diversified, and 
many of the petty chiefs grasping and unfriendly, so that 
it was a constant, long, wearisome fight with obstacles from 
the beginning to the end of each week. But, on November 
3d, a caravan of eighty came into Stanley's camp from the 
westward. The latter asked the news. They replied that 
a white man had just arrived at Ujiji. This was startling 
news indeed. 

"A white man!" exclaimed Stanley. 



NEWS FROM UJIJI. 137 

** Yes, a white man." 

" How is lie dressed ?" 

"Like the master/' pointing to him. 

"Is he young or old?" 

" He is old, with white hair on his face ; and he is sick." 

" Where has he come from ?" was the next anxious in- 
quiry. 

" From a very far country, away beyond Uguhha." 

" And is he now stopping at Ujiji ?" 

" Yes, we left him there eight days ago." 

" How long is he going to stay there ?" 

" Don t know." . 

" Was he ever there before ?" 

" Yes ; he went away a long time ago." 

Stanley gave a shout of exultation, exclaiming : " It is 
Livingstone!" 

Then came the thought, it may be some other man. 
Perhaps it is Baker, who has worked his way in there be- 
fore me. It was a crushing thought, that after all his 
sufferings, and sickness, and toils, he should have been 
anticipated, and there was now nothing left for him to do 
but march back again. No he exclaimed to himself: 
" Baker has no white hair on his face." But he could now 
wait no longer, and turning to his men, he asked them if 
they were willing to march to Ujiji without a single halt. 
If they were, he would, on their arrival, present each two 
doti of cloth. They all shouted yes. Stanley jots clown : 
" I was madly rejoiced, intensely eager to resolve the burn- 
ing question, 'Is it Dr. Livingstone?' God grant me 
patience ; but I do wish there was a railroad, or at least, 
horses, in this country. With a horse I could reach him 
in twelve hours." 

But new dangers confronted him. The chiefs became 
more exhorbitant in their demands and more hostile in 



138 FRESH DIFFICULTIES. 

their demonstrations, and but for Stanley's eagerness to get 
on, he would more than once have fought his way through 
some of those pertinacious tribes. But his patience, at last, 
gave out, for he was told after he had settled the last 
tribute that there were five more chiefs ahead who would 
exact tribute. This would beggar him, and he asked two 
natives if there was no way of evading the next chief, 
named Wahha. 

" This rather astonished them at first, and they declared 
it to be impossible; but, finally, after being pressed, they re- 
plied that one of their number should guide us at midnight, 
or a little after, into the jungle which grew on the frontiers 
of Uhha and Uvinza. By keeping a direct west course 
through this jungle until we came to Ukavanga, we might 
be enabled — we were told — to travel through Uhha with- 
out further trouble. If I were willing to pay the guide 
twelve doti, and if I were able to impose silence on my 
people while passing through the sleeping village, the guide 
was positive I could reach Ujiji without paying another 
doti. It is needless to add that I accepted the proffered 
assistance at such a price with joy. 

" But there was much to be done. Provisions were to 
be purchased, sufiicient to last four days, for the tramp 
through the jungle, and men were at once sent with cloth 
to purchase grain at any price. Fortune favored us, for, 
before 8 P. M. we had enough for six days. 

" November 7th.-: — I did not go to sleep at all last night, 
but a little after midnight, as the moon was beginning to 
show itself, by gangs of four the men stole quietly out of 
the village ; and by 3 A. M. the entire expedition was out- 
side the bonna and not the slightest alarm had been made. 
After whistling to the new guide, the expedition began to 
move in a southern direction along the right bank of the 
Kanenzi Biver. After an hour's march in this direction. 



I 

THE MIDNIGHT MAECH. 13^ 

we struck west across the grassy plain, and maintained it, 
despite the obstacles we encountered, which were sore 
enough to naked men. The bright moon lighted our 
path; dark clouds now and then cast immense long 
shadows over the deserted and silent plain, and the moon- 
beams were almost obscured, and at such times our po- 
sition seemed awful — 

" ' Till the moon, 
Rising in clouded majesty, at length, 
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, 
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.' 

" Bravely toiled the men, without murmur, though their 
legs were bleeding from the cruel grass. ^Ambrosial 
morn' at last appeared, with all its beautiful and lovely 
features. Heaven was born anew to us, with comforting 
omens and cheery promise. The men, though fatigued at 
the unusual travel, sped forward with quicker pace as 
daylight broke, until, at 8 A. M., we sighted the swift 
Eusugi Elver, when a halt was ordered in a clump of 
jungle near it, for breakfast and rest. Both banks of the 
river were alive with buffalo, eland and antelope, but 
though the sight was very tempting, we did not fire, 
because we dared not. The report of a gun would have 
alarmed the whole country. I preferred my coffee, and 
the contentment which my mind experienced at our 
success. 

" An hour after we had rested, some natives carrying 
salt from the Malagarazi were seen coming up the right 
bank of the river. When abreast of our hiding-place 
they detected us, and dropping their salt-bags, they took 
to their heels at once, shouting out as they ran, to alarm 
some villages that appeared some four miles north of us. 
The men were immediately ordered to take up their loads, 
and in a few minutes we had crossed the Eusugi, and were 



140 TAMING A SHREW. 

making direct for a bamboo jungle that aj^peared in our 
front. Almost as soon as we entered, a weak-brained 
woman raised a series of piercing yells. The men were 
appalled at this noisy demonstration, which would call 
down u^^on our heads the vengeance of the Wahha for 
evading the tribute, to which they thought themselves 
entitled. In half an hour we should have hundreds of 
howling savages about us in the jungle, and probably a 
general massacre would ensue. The woman screamed 
fearfully again and again, for no cause whatever. Some 
of the men, with the instinct of self-preservation, at once 
dropped their bales and loads and vanished into the jungle. 
The guide came rushing back to me, imploring me to stop 
her noise. The woman's husband, livid with rage and 
fear, drew his sword and asked permission to cut her head 
off at once. Had I given the least signal, the woman had 
paid with her life for her folly. I attempted to hush her 
cries by putting my hand over her mouth, but she violently 
wrestled with me, and continued her cries worse than ever. 
There remained nothing else for me to do, but to try the 
virtue of my whip over her shoulders. I asked her to 
desist after the first blow. ' No !' She continued her 
insane cries with increased force and volume. Again my 
whip descended on her shoulders. ^ No, no, no.' Another 
blow. ' Will you hush V ' No, no, no,' louder and louder 
she cried, and faster and faster I showered the blows for 
the taming of this shrew. However, seeing I was as 
determined to flog as she was to cry, she desisted before 
the tenth blow and became silent. A cloth was folded 
over her mouth, and her arms were tied behind her ; and 
in a few moments, the runaways having returned to their 
duty, the expedition moved forward again with redoubled 
pace." 

That night they encamped at Lake Musunya, which 



AX UNEXPECTED DANGER. 141 

swarmed with hippopotami. No tent nor hut was raised, 
nor fire kindled, and Stanley lay down with his rifle slung 
over his shoulders, ready to act on a moment's notice. Be- 
fore daylight they were off again, and at early dawn 
emerged from the jungle and stretched rapidly across a 
naked plain. Reaching the Rugufa River, they halted in 
a deep shade, when suddenly Stanley heard a sound like 
distant thunder. Asking one of his men if it were thunder, 
the latter replied no, that it was the noise made by the 
waves of Tanganika breaking into the caverns of a moun- 
tain on its shore. Was he, indeed, so near this great in- 
land sea, of which Ujiji was the chief harbor? 

Pressing on three hours longer they encamped in the 
forest. Two hours before daylight they again set out, the 
guide promising that by next morning they should be 
clear of the hostile district. On this Stanley exclaims, 
" Patience, my soul ! A few hours more and then the end 
of all this will be known. I shall be face to face with that 
white man with the white beard on his face, whoever he 
may be." Before daylight they started again, and emerg- 
ing from the forest on to the high road^ the guides, think- 
ing they had passed the last village of the hostile tribe, 
set up a shout, but soon, to their horror, canie plump upon 
its outskirts. Fate seemed about to desert him at the last 
moment, for if the village was roused he was a doomed 
man. Keeping concealed amid the trees, Stanley ordered 
the goats to be killed, lest their bleating should lead to 
their discovery, the chickens to be killed also, and then 
plunged into the jungle, Stanley being the last man to fol- 
low. It was a narrow escape. After an half-hour's march, 
finding they were not pursued, they again took to the road. 
One more night in the encampment and then the end 
would come. Next morning they push on with redoubled 
speed, and, in two hours, from the top of a mountain he 



142 NEARING THE GOAL. 

beholds with bounding heart the Lake Tanganika ; a vast 
expanse of burnished silver with the dark mountains 
around it and the blue sky above it. " Hurrah," shouts 
Stanley, and the natives take up the shout, till the hills and 
forest ring with their exultant cries. The long struggle 
was nearly over ; the goal toward which he had been so 
long straining almost won. 



CHAPTER IX- 



YlTW CF TBnr TANSABIKA— »IRST SIGHT OF trjUI— THE AMERICAN FLAG — LIVINGSTONE'S SEB- 
VAXTS— DK. I.IVINGSTOXE, I PKESU.ME?— THE MEETING— LIVINGSTONE'S LETTER-BAG— A BUDGET 
OF NL^-S— BRnCGING NEAT LIFE— THE COOK'S EXCITEMENT— LIVINGSTONE'S DEPLORABLE CON- 
DITION—THE DUEAil BEAUZED, 



THE excitement tliat Stanley felt at this supreme mo- 
ment of his life can never be described or even 
imagined. When he started from Zanzibar, he knew he 
had thrown the dice which was to fix his fate. Successful, 
and his fame was secure, while failure meant death, and all 
the chances against him. How much he had taken upon 
himself no one but he knew ; into what gloomy gulfs h^ 
had looked before he started, he alone was conscious. Of 
the risks he ran, of the narrow escapes he had made, of 
the toils and sufferings he had endured, he alone could 
estimate them. With the acqumulation of difficulties — 
with the increasing darkness of his prospects, the one great 
object of his mission had increased in importance, till great 
as it was, became unnaturally magnified so that, at last, it 
filled all his vision, and became the one, the great, the 
only object in life worth pursuing. For it he had risked 
so much, toiled so long and suffered so terribly, that the 
whole world, with all its interests, was secondary to it. 
Hope had given way to disa]3pointment and disappointment 
yielded to despair so often, that his strong nature had got 
keyed up to a dangerous pitch. But now the reward was 
near; and Balboa, when alone he ascended the solitary 
summit that was to give him a sight of the new, the hith- 

143 



144 VIEW OF THE TAI^GANIKA. 

erto unknown, the great Pacific Ocean, was not more 
intensely excited than Stanley was when he labored ujd the 
steep mountain that should give him a view of the Tan- 
ganika. 

Tiie joy, the exultation of that moment, outbalanced a 
life of common happiness. It was a feeling that lifts the 
soul into a region where our common human nature never 
goes, and it becomes a memory that influences and shapes 
the character forever. Such a moment of ecstasy — of per- 
fect satisfaction — of exultant triumphant feeling that asks 
nothing better — that brings perfect rest wdth the highest 
exaltation, can never haj)pen to a man but once in a life- 
time, and not to one in ten millions of men. . To attempt 
to give any description of this culmination of all his eiforts, 
and longings, and ambition, except in his own words, would 
be not only an act of injustice to him, but to the reader. 

The descent to Ujiji and the interview with Living- 
stone is full of dramatic interest and the description of it 
should not be made by a third party, for to attemjDt to im- 
j)rove on it w^ould be presumption and would end only in 
failure, and we, therefore, give it in Mr. Stanley's own words, 
that glow with vivid life ftom beginning to end, and this 
shall be his chapter: 

'' We are descending the western slope of the mountain, 
with the valley of the Linche before us. Something like 
an hour before noon we have gained the thick matite brake, 
which grows on both banks of the river ; w^e wade through 
the clear stream, arrive on the other side, emerge out of the 
brake, and the gardens of the Wajiji are around us — a per- 
fect marvel of vegetable wealth. Details escape my hasty 
and partial observation. I am almost overpowered with 
my own emotion. I notice the graceful palms, neat plats, 
green with vegetable plants, and small villages, surrounded 
with frail fences of the matite cane. 



FIKST SIGHT OF UJIJI. 145 

"We push on rapidly, lest the news of our coming 
might reach the people of Bunder Ujiji before we ^ 
come in sight and are ready for them. We halt at a little 
brook, then ascend the long slope of a naked ridge, the 
very last of the myriads we have crossed. This alone pre- 
vents us from seeing the lake in all its vastness. We 
arrive at the summit, travel across and arrive at its western 
rim, and — pause, reader — the port of Ujiji is below us, 
embowered in the palms, only five hundred yards from us. 
At this grand moment we do not think of the hundreds of 
miles we have marched, of the hundreds of hills we have 
ascended and descended, of the many forests we have 
traversed, of the jungles and thickets that annoyed us, of 
the fervid salt plains that blistered our feet, of the hot suns 
that scorched us, nor the dangers and difficulties now haj)- 
pily surmounted. At last the sublime hour has arrived ! 
our dreams, our hopes, our anticipations are about to be 
realized. Our hearts and our feelings are with our eyes, 
as we peer into the palms and try to make out in which hut 
or house lives the white man, with tJie gray beard, we 
heard about on the Malagarazi. 

" * Unfurl the flags and load the guns.' 

" ' Ay, Wallah, ay. Wallah, bana !' responded the men, 
eagerly. 

" ' One — two — three — fire.' 

" A volley from nearly fifty guns roars like a salute from 
a battery of artillery ; we shall note its effect, presently, on 
the j)eaceful-looking village below. 

" ' Xow, Kirangazi, hold the white man's flag up high, and 
let the Zanzibar flag bring up the rear. And you men keep 
close together, and keep firing until we halt in the market- 
place, or before the white man's house. You have said to 
me often that you could smell the fish of the Tanganika. 
I can smell the fish of the Tanganika now. There are fish, 
and beer, and a long rest awaiting for you. March !' 



146 THE AMEEICAN FLAG. 

'^ Before we had gone one hundred yards our repeated 
volleys had the desired effect. We had awakened Ujiji to 
the fact that a caravan was coming, and the people were 
witnessed rushing up in hundreds to meet us. The mere 
sight of the flags informed every one immediately that we 
were a caravan, but the American dag, borne aloft by the 
gigantic Asmani, whose face was one broad smile on this 
day, rather staggered them at first. However, many of the 
people who now approached us remembered the flag. They 
had seen it float above thb American consulate, and from the 
mast-heads of many a ship in the harbor of Zanzibar, and 
they were soon heard welcoming the beautiful flag with 
cries of ' Bindera Kisungu !' — a white man's flag ! * Bin- 
dera Mericani !' — the American flag ! 

" Then we were surrounded by them — by Wajiji, Wan- 
yamzi, Wangwana, Warundi, Waguhha, Wamanyuema and 
Arabs, and were almost deafened with the shout of * Yam- 
bo, yambo, bona ! Yambo bona, Yambo bona !' To all 
and each of my men the welcome was given. 

"We were now about three hundred yards from the 
village of Ujiji, and the crowds are dense about me. Sud- 
denly I hear a voice on my right say : * Good morning, 
sir !' 

" Startled at hearing this greeting in the midst of such a 
crowd of black people, I turn sharply around in search of 
the man, and see him at my side with the blackest of faces, 
but animated and joyous — a man dressed in a long white 
shirt, with a turban of American sheeting around his 
woolly head, and I ask : * Who the mischief are you ?' 

" ^ I am Susi, the servant of Dr. Livingstone,' said he, 
smiling and showing a gleaming row of teeth. 

" * What ! is Dr. Livingstone here ?' 

"'Yes, sir.' 

"'In this village?' 



Livingstone's servants. 147 

"* Yes, sir/ 

" * Are you sure V 

" ' Sure, sure, sir. Why I just left him/ 

" ' Good-morning, sir,' said another voice. 

" ' Hallo,' said I, * is this another one V 

"'Yes, sir.' 

" ' Well, what is your name ?' 

" ' My name is Chumah, sir.' 

" ' What are you, Chumah, the friend of Wekotani ?' 

"'Yes, sir.' 

" ' And is the doctor well V 

" ' Not very well, sir.' 

" ' Where has he been so long T 

" ' In Manyuema.' 

"'Now you, Susi, run and tell the doctor I am 
coming.' 

" ' Yes, sir,' and off he darted like a madman. 

" By this time we were within two hundred yards of the 
village, and the multitude was getting denser, and almost 
preventing our march. Flags and streamers were out; 
Arabs and Wangwana were pushing their way through the 
natives in order to greet us, for according to their account 
we belc^nged to them. But the great wonder of all was, 
* How did you come from Unyanyembe ?' 

" Soon Susi came running back and asked me my name; 
he had told the doctor that I was coming, but the doctor 
was too surprised to believe him, and when the doctor 
asked him my name Susi was rather staggered. 

" But during Susi's absence the news had been conveyed 
to the doctor that it was surely a white man that was 
coming, whose guns were firing and whose flag could be 
seen ; and the great Arab magnates of Ujiji — Mohammed 
bin Sali, Sayd bin Majid, Abid bin Suliman, Mohammed 
bin Gharib and others — had gathered together before the 



148 "dr. livixgsto^^e, i presume?" 

doctor's house, and the doctor had come out on his veranda 
to discuss the matter and await my arrival. 

*' In the meantime, the head of the expedition had halted 
and the Kirangozi were out of the ranks, holding the flag 
aloft, and Selim said to me, 'I see the doctor, sir. Oh, 
what an old man ! He has got a white beard.' And I — 
what would I not have given for a bit of friendly wilder- 
ness where, unseen, I might vent my joy in some mad 
freak, such as idiotically biting my hand, turning a somer- 
sault, or slashing some trees, in order to allay those exciting 
feelings that were well-nigh uncontrollable. My heart 
beats fast, but I must not let my face betray my emotions, 
lest it shall detract from the dignity of a white man ap- 
pearing under such extraordinary circumstances. 

" So I did that which I thought was most dignified, I 
pushed back the crowds, and, passing from the rear, walked 
down a living avenue of people until I came in front of 
the semi-circle of Arabs, in front of which stood the white 
man with the gray beard. As I advanced slowly toward 
him I noticed he was pale, looked wearied, had a gray 
beard, wore a bMsh cap with a faded gold band around it, 
had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of gray tweed 
trousers. I would have run to him, only- 1 was a coward 
in such a mob — would have em.braced him, only, he being 
an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; 
so I did what cowardice and false j^ride suggested was the 
best thing — walked deliberately to him, took off my hat 
and said, ^ Dr.» Livingstone, I presume T 

" ^ Yes,' said he, wich a kind smile, lifting his hat slightly. 

'' I replace my oap on my head, and he j^uts on his cap, 
and we both gre.sp hands, and then I say aloud : ' I thank 
God, doctor, I have been permitted to see you.' 

"He answered • *I feel thankful I am here to welcome 
you.' 



THE MEETING. 1^1 

" I turned to the Arabs, took c^ff my hat to them in re- 
gpon-ee to the saluting chorus of ' Yambos.' I receive, and 
the doctor introduces them to me by name. Then oblivious 
of the crowds, oblivious of the men who shared with me 
my dangers, we — Livingstone and I — turn our faces towar<l 
his tembe. He points to the veranda, or rather mud plat- 
form, under the broad over-hanging eaves ; he points to his 
own particular seat, which I see his age and experience in 
Africa have suggested, namely, a straw mat with a goat 
skin over it, and another skin nailed against the wall to 
protect his back from contact with the cold mud. I protest 
against taking this seat, which so much more befits him 
than me, but the doctor will not yield : I must take it. 

" We are seated — the doctor and I — with our backs to 
the wall. The Arabs take seats on our left. More than a 
thousand natives are in our front, filling the whole square 
densely, indulging their curiosity and discussing the fact 
of two white men meeting at Ujiji — one just come from 
Manyuema, in the west, the other from Unyanyembe, in 
the east. 

" Conversation began. "What about ? I declare I have 
forgotten. Oh! we mutually asked questions of one another, 
such as : *How did you come here T and 'Where have you 
been all this long time ? the world has believed you to be 
dead.' Yes, that was the way it began ; but whatever the 
doctor informed me, and that which I communicated to him, 
I cannot exactly report, for I found myself gazing at him, 
conning the wonderful man, at whose side I now sat in 
Central Africa. Every hair of his head and beard, every 
wrinkle of his face, the wanness of his features, and the 
slightly wearied look he wore, were all imparting intelli- 
gence to me — the knowledge I craved for so much ever 
since I heard the words, * Take what you want, but find 

Livingstone.' What I saw was deeply interesting intelli- 
9 



152 Livingstone's lettee-bag. 

gence to me, and unvarnished truths I was listening and 
reading at the same time. What did these dumb witnesses 
relate "to me? 

**0h, reader, had you been at my side that day at Ujiji, 
how eloquently could be told the nature of this man's 
work ! Had you been there but to see and hear ! His lips' 
gave me the details ; lips that never lie. I cannot repeat 
what he said ; I was too much engrossed to take my note-, 
book out and begin to stenograph his story. He had so 
much to say that he began at the end, seemingly oblivious 
of the fact that five or six years had to be accounted for. 
But his account was oozing out ; it was growing fast into 
grand proportions — into a most marvelous history of deeds. 

" The Arabs rose up with a delicacy I approved, as if 
they intuitively knew that we ought to be left to ourselves 
I sent Bombay with them to give them the news they also 
wanted so much to know about the affairs at Unyanyembe. 
Sayd bin Majid was the father of the gallant young man 
whom I saw at Masange, and who fought with me at Zim- 
bizo, and who soon afterwards was killed by Mirambo's 
Huga — Buga in the forest of Wilyankuru ; and knowing 
I had been there, he earnestly desired to hear the tale of 
the fight ; bat they had all friends at Unyanyembe, and it 
was but natural that they should be anxious to hear of 
what concerned them. 

"After giving orders to Bombay and Asmani for the 
provisioning of the men of the expedition, I called ' Kaif- 
Halek,' or 4iow do ye do,' and introduced him to Dr. Liv- 
ingstone as one of the soldiers in charge of certain goods 
left at Unyanyembe, whom I had compelled to accompany 
me to Ujiji that he might delivei*, in person, to his master 
the letter-bag he had been intrusted with by Dr. Kirk. 

"This was the famous letter-bag marked 'Nov. 1st, 
1870/ which was now delivered into the doctor's hands, 



A BUDGET OF NEWS. 153 

three hundred and sixty-five days after it left Zanzibar! 
How long, I wonder, had it remained at Unyanyembe, had 
I not been dispatched into Central Africa in search of the 
great traveler? 

" The doctor kept the letter-bag on his knee, then, pres- 
ently, opened it, looked at the letters contained there and 
read one or two of his children's letters, his face, in the 
meanwhile, lighting up. 

"He asked me to tell him'the news. ^ISTo, doctor,' said 
I, ' read your letters first, which., I am sure, you must be 
impatient to read.' 

*'^Ah,' said he, ^I have waited years for letters, and I 
have been taught patience. I can surely afford to wait a 
few hours longer. No ; tell me the general news ; how is 
the world getting along ?' 

"^You probably know much already. Do you know 
that the Suez Canal is a fact — is opened and a regular trade 
carried on between Europe and India through it ?' 

" ' I did not hear about the opening of it. Well, that is 
grand news ! What else ?' 

" Shortly I found myself enacting the part of an annual 
periodical to him. There was no need of exaggeration — 
of any penny-a-line news, or of any sensationalism. The 
world had witnessed and experienced much the last few 
years. The Pacific Railroad had been completed ; Grant 
had been elected President of the United States ; Egypt 
had been flooded with savans; the Cretan rebellion had 
terminated; a Spanish revolution had driven Isabella 
from the throne of Spain, and a regent had been ap- 
pointed; General Prim was assassinated; a Castelar had 
electrified Europe with his advanced ideas ujDon the liberty 
of worship; Prussia had humbled Denmark and annexed 
Scbleswig-Holstein, and her armies were now around 
Paris ; the * Man of Destiny' was a prisoner at Wilhelms- 



154 BRINGING n::w life. 

hohe; the queen of fashion and the empress of the 
French was a fugitive ; and the child born in the purple 
had lost forever the imperial crown intended for its head ; 
the Napoleon dynasty was extinguished by the Prussians, 
Bismarck and Von Moltke, and France, the proud empire, 
was humbled to the dust. 

" What could a man have exaggerated of these facts ? 
What a budget of news it was to one who had emerged 
from the depths of the jDrimeval forests of Manyuema! 
The reflection of the dazzling light of civilization was cast 
on him while Livingstone was thus listening in wonder to 
one of the most exciting passages of history ever repeated. 
How the puny deeds of barbarism paled before these! 
Who could tell under what new phases of uneasy life 
Europe was laboring even then, while we two of her lonely 
children rehearsed the tale of her late woes and glories ? 
More worthily, perhaps, had the tongue of a lyric De- 
modocus recounted them ; but in the absence of the poet, 
the newspaper correspondent performed his part as well 
and truthfully as he could. 

" Not long after the Arabs had departed, a dishful of hot 
hashed-m.eat cakes was sent to us by Sayd bin Majid, and 
a curried chicken was received from Mohammed bin Sali, 
and Moeni Kheri sent a dishful of stewed goat meat and 
rice ; and thus jDresents of food came in succession, and as 
fast as they were brought we set to. I had a healthy, 
stubborn digestion, the exercise I had taken had put it in 
prime order, but Livingstone— he had been comjDlaining 
that he had no appetite, that his stomach refused every- 
thing but a cup of tea now and then — he ate also — ate like 
a vigorous, hungry man ; and as he vied with me in 
demolishing the pancakes, he kept repeating, * You have 
brought me new life.' 

" ' Oh, by George,' I said, ' I have forgotten something. 




DR. DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



THE cook's excitement. 157 

Hasten, Selim, and bring that bottle ; you know whicli ; 
and bring me the silver goblets. I brought this bottle on 
purpose for this event, which I hoped would come to pass, 
though often it seemed useless to expect it.' 

" Selim knew where the bottle was, and he soon returned 
with it — a bottle of Sillery champagne ; and, handing the 
doctor a silver goblet brimful of the exhilarating wine, 
and pouring a small quantity into my own, I said : * Dr. 
Livingstone, to your very good health, sir.' 

" ' And to yours,' he responded. 

"And the champagne I had treasured for this happy 
meeting was drank with hearty good wishes to each other. 

" But we kept on talking and talking, and prepared food 
was brought to us all that afternoon, and we kept on eating 
every time it was brought until I had eaten even to reple- 
tion, and the doctor was obliged to confess that he had 
eaten enough. Still, Halimah, the female cook of the doe- 
tor's establishment, was in a state of the greatest excite- 
ment. She had been protruding her head out of the cook- 
house, to make sure that there were really two white men 
sitting down in the veranda, when there used to be only 
one, who would not, because he could not, eat anything ; 
and she had been considerably exercised in her mind over 
this fact. She was afraid the doctor did not properly 
appreciate her culinary abilities ; but now she was amazed 
at the extraordinary quantity of food eaten, and she was in 
a state of delightful excitement. We could hear her tongue 
rolling off a tremendous volume of clatter to the wonder- 
ing crowds who halted before the kitchen to hear the cur- 
rent of news with which she edified them. Poor, faithful 
soul. While we listen to the noise of her furious gossip, 
the doctor related her faithful services and the terrible 
anxiety she evinced when the guns first announced the 
nrrival of another white man in Ujiji ; how she had been 



158 liyingstone's deplorable condition. 

flying about in a state of the utmost excitement, from the 
kitchen into his presence, and out again into the square, 
asking all sorts of questions ; how she was in despair at the 
scantiness of the general larder and treasury of the strange 
household; how she was anxious to make up for their 
poverty by a grand appearance — to make up a sort of Bar- 
mecide feast to welcome the white man. 

" ' Why,' said she, ^ is he not one of us ? Does he not 
bring plenty of cloth and beads ? Talk about the Arabs ! 
Who are they, that they should be compared to white men ? 
Arabs, indeed !' 

"The doctor and I conversed upon many things, 
especially upon his own immediate troubles, and his dis- 
appointment upon his arrival at Ujiji when told that all 
his goods had been sold, and he was reduced to poverty. 
He had but twenty cloths or so left of the stock he had 
deposited with the man called sheriff, the half-caste, 
drunken tailor, who was sent by the British consul in 
charge of the goods. Besides which he had been suffering 
from an attack of the dysentery, and his condition was 
most deplorable. He was but little improved on this day, 
though he had eaten well, and already began to feel stronger 
and better. 

" This day, like all others, though big with happiness to 
me, at last, was fading away. We, sitting with our faces 
looking to the east, as Livingstone had been sitting for 
days preceding my arrival, noted the dark shadow which 
crept up above the grove of palms beyond the village, and 
above the rampart of mountains which we had crossed that 
day, now looming through the fast-approaching darkness ; 
and we listened, with our hearts full of gratitude to the 
great Giver of Good and Dispenser of all Happiness to the 
sonorous thunder of the surf of the Tanganika, and to the 
chorus which the night insects sang. Hours passed, and we 



THE DREAM REALIZED. 159 

were still sitting there with our minds busy upon the day's 
remarkable events, when I remembered that the traveler 
had not yet read his letters. 

" ^ Doctor/ I said, * you had better read your letters. I 
will not keep you up any longer.' 

" * Yes,' he answered, * it is getting late, and I will go 
and read my friends' letters. Good-night, and God bless 
you.' 

" ' Good-night, my dear doctor, and let me hope your 
news will be such as you desire.' " 

Since the creation of the world there never has occurred 
such another interview. The feelings of Stanley that night, 
in the heart of Africa, can only be imagined. The strain 
.had ended, the doubt and suspense was over — he had found 
Livingstone — he had succeeded — his most extravagant 
dreams had been realized — ^his wildest ambition satisfied, 
and from that hour the adventurer, the newspaper cor- 
respondent, took his place among the great explorers of 
the world. But it was no stroke of luck — it was the fitting 
reward of great risks and great endeavor. 



CHAPTER X. 

«IEST AT UJIJI— STANLEY'S LOVE FOR LIVINGSTONE THE BEST EULOGITM ON HIS OWN CHARACTER 
— THE NIGHT— THE MORNING INTERVIEW— LIFE WITH LIVINGSTONE— SURVEY THE TANGANIICA 
TOGETHER— LIVINGSTONE ACCOMPANIES STANLEY TO UNY'ANY^EMBE — THE LONG MARCH— LIFE 
IN THE PLACE— PREPARATIONS FOR PARTING — THE LAST BREAKFAST — THE LAST SAD FARE- 
AVELL— STANLEY'S HOMEWARD MARCH— ITS PERILS— INUNDATIONS— MAKATA SWAMP— TERRI- 
BLE MARCHING— STANLEY SENDS OFF FOR RELIEF— ITS ARRIVAL— BAGOMAYO REACHED AT 
LAST— NOISY ENTRANCE— STANLEY'S JOY'— IT IS SUDDENLY DASHED — CRUEL CONDUCT OF THE 
PRESS— START FOR HOME. 

THS rest and repose that Stanley now enjoyed cannot 
be described nor even imagined. His long strug- 
gle — bis doubts, and fears, and painful anxiety were over, 
and the end toward which he had strained with such un- 
flagging resolution, under the most disheartening circum- 
stances, and which at times seemed to recede the more he 
pressed forward, was at last reached. The sweet repose, the 
calm satisfaction and enjoyment which always come with 
the consciousness of complete success, now filled his heart, 
and he felt as no one can feel who has not at last won a long 
and doubtful battle. It was complete rest — entire fruition 
of his hopes ; and, as he sat down there, in the heart of 
Africa, beside Livingstone, -he was, doubtless, for at least 
the first few days, the happiest man on the globe, and well 
deserved to be. The goal was won, the prize secured, and 
for' the time being his utmost desires satisfied — and why 
should he not be happy ? 

His intercourse with Livingstone for the next four 
months will be marked by him with a white stone, as the 
brightest portion of his eventful life. Independent of all 
he had undergone to find this remarkable man, the man 

160 



STANLEYS LOVE FOR LIVINGSTONE. 10^ 

Himself enlisted all his sympathies and awakened his most' 
extravagant admiration and purest love, and a more charm- 
ing picture can hardly be conceived than these two men, 
w^alking at sunset along the beach of the wild and lonely 
lake of Tanganika, talking over the strange scenes and 
•objects of this strange, new world, or recalling those of 
home and friends far away, amid all the comforts and 
luxuries of civilization The man whom Stanley had at 
last found was almost as new and startling a revelation to 
him as the country in which he now found himself. Sim- 
ple, earnest, unselfish — nay, unambitious, so far as per- 
sonal fame was concerned, borne up in all his sufferings 
and trials by one great and noble ]3urpose, and conquering 
€ven savage hate by the power of goodness alone, he was 
an object of the profoundest interest. And no greater 
^ulogium on the innate goodness and nobleness of Stan- 
ley's nature could be given than he unconsciously bestowed 
on himself by the deep attachment, nay, almost devotion, 
lie expresses for this lonely, quiet, good man. He fastens 
to him at once, and casting off old prejudices and rejecting 
all former criticisms of his character, he impulsively be- 
comes his champion, and crowns him the prince of men. 

The talk between them, at this first meeting in this far-off 
land, was long and pleasant, and when the good-night was 
given, it was with strange feelings Stanley turned into his 
— not tent — but regular bed. After all the toils and 
almost unnatural excitement of the day, he soon sank into 
profound slumber. The next morning he awoke with a 
sudden start, and looked about him for a moment in a 
dazed way. He was not on the ground, but in a bed — a 
roof, not a tent, was above him, while not a sound broke 
the stillness save the steady, monotonous roar of the surf 
beating on the shore. As he lay and listened, strange 
thoughts and varied emotions chased each other in rapid 



162 LIVINGSTOITE ASTONISHED. 

succession througli liis heart. At length he arose and 
dressed himself, intending, before breakfast, to take a stroll 
along the shore of the lake. But the doptor was up before 
him, and met him with a cordial " Good-morning," and 
the hope that he had rested well. 

Livingstone had sat up late reading the news that Stan- 
ley had brought him from the outside world, from which 
he had heard nothing for years. 

" Sit down,'' said the venerable man, " you have brought 
me good and bad news," and then repeated, first of all, the 
tidings he had received from his children. 

In the excitement of the day before, the doctor had for- 
gotten to inquire of Stanley the object of his coming, or 
where he was going, and the latter now said : " Doctor, 
you are probably w^ondering why I came here." 

" It is true," was the reply, " I have been wondering." 

That wonder was increased when Stanley said : " I came 
after you, nothing else." 

" After me !" exclaimed the now utterly bewildered man. 

" Yes," said Stanley, " after you. I suppose you have 
heard of the New York Herald /" 

" Yes," said the doctor. 

" Well, Mr. Bennett, son of the proprietor, sent me, at 
his own. expense, to find you." 

Poor Livingstone could hardly comprehend the fact that 
an American, and a stranger, should expend $25,000 to 
find him, a solitary Englishman. 

Stanley lived now some four months in the closest inti- 
macy with Livingstone. Removed from all the formalities 
of civilized life — the only two in that far-off land who 
could speak the English language, and who were of the 
same lineage and faith — their relations of necessity became 
very intimate. All restraint was thrown off, and this noble 
Tnan poured into the astonished ears of Stanley all he had 



SURVEYING TANGANIKA LAKE. 165 

thought, prayed for, endured and suffered for the last long 
^Ye years. It was a new revelation to him — opened up a 
new world^ — gave him a new and loftier conception than 
ever before of what human nature is capable of attaining 
to, and he says : " I had gone over battle-fields, witnessed 
revolutions, civil wars, rebellions, emeutes and massacres ; 
stood close to the condemned murderer, to record his last 
struggles and last sighs ; but never had I been called to 
record anything that moved me so much as this man's 
woes and sufferings, his privations and disappointments, 
which were now poured into my ear. Verily did I begin 
to believe that * the gods above us do with just eyes survey 
the affairs of men.' I began to recognize the hand of an 
overruling Providence.'' 

After resting for a week, during which time Stanley be- 
came thoroughly acquainted with Livingstone and learned 
to respect and love him more and more, the former asked 
the doctor if he would not like to explore the north end of 
the Tanganika Lake and, among other things, settle the 
question whether the Eusizi River flowed mto or out of the 
lake. The doctor gladly consented, and they set off in a 
canoe manned by sixteen rowers. The weather was fine, 
the scenery charming, and it seemed like floating through 
a fairy-land. Day after day they kept on — landing at 
night on the picturesque shores, undisturbed, except in one 
or two instances, by the natives. The luxuriant banks 
were lined with villages, filled with an indolent, contented 
people. With no wants, except food to eat, and the lake 
full of fish, they had nothing to stimulate them to activity 
or effort of any kind. 

Islands came and went, mountains rose and faded on the 
horizon, and it was one long holiday to our two explorers. 
As the rowers bent steadily to their oars and the canoe 
glided softly through the rippling waters, they spent the 



166 A LONG JilAECH. 

time in admiring the beautiful scenery that kept changing 
like a kaleidoscope, or talking of home and friends and the 
hopes and prospects of the future. A hippopotamus would 
now and then startle them by his loud snort, as he sud- 
denly lifted his head near the boat to breathe — wild fowl 
skittered away as they approached — a sweet fragrance came 
down from the hill-sides, and the tropical sky bent soft and 
blue above them. The conventionalities of life were far 
away and all was calm and peaceful, and seemed to Stanley 
more like a dream than a reality. They were thus voy- 
aging along the coast twenty-eight days, during which time 
they had traversed over three hundred miles of water. 

But now the time came for Stanley to turn his footsteps 
homeward. He tried in vain to prevail on Livingstone to 
go home with him, but the latter, though anxious to see 
his children, resolutely refused, saying that he must finish 
his work. He, however, concluded to accompany him as 
far as Unyanyembe, to meet his stores which had been for- 
warded to that place for him from Zanzibar. On the 27th 
of December, they set out by a new route. Nothing oc- 
curred in the long journey of special interest, except the 
shooting of a zebra and buffalo, or meeting a herd of ele- 
phants or giraffes, or a lion. It was a tedious and toilsome 
journey, during which Stanley suffered from attacks of 
fever, and Livingstone from lacerated feet. They were 
fifty-three days on the march, but at last Unyanyembe 
was reached. Stanley once more took possession of his old 
quarters. Here both found letters and papers from home, 
brought by a recent caravan, and once more seemed put in 
communication with the outside world. Being well housed 
and provided with everything they needed, they felt thor- 
oughly comfortable. 

The doctor's boxes were first broken open, and between 
the number of poor articles they contained and the absence 



PREPARATIONS FOR PARTING. 167 

of good ones which had been abstracted on the way, proved 
Bomething of a disappointment. Stanley then overhauled 
his own stores, of which there were seventy-four loads, the 
most valuable of which he intended to turn over to Living- 
stone. These, also, had been tampered with ; still many 
luxuries remained, and they determined to have their 
Christmas dinner over again. Stanley arranged the bill 
of fare, and it turned out to be a grand affair. But now 
he saw that he must begin to prepare for his return to the 
coast, and so left Livingstone to write up his journal and 
finish the letters he was to send home. In overhauling 
his stores and making up the packages he should need on 
his return route, he was able to select out and turn over to 
the doctor two thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight 
yards of cloth, nine hundred and ninety-two pounds of 
assorted beads, three hundred and fifty pounds of brass 
wire, besides bed, canvas boat, carpenters' tools, rifles, 
revolvers, ammunition, cooking utensils and various other 
articles of use — making in all about forty loads ; which, 
with his own stores, made Livingstone quite a rich man 
for Central Africa — in fact, he had four years' supplies. 

At length the letters were all written, the loads strapped, 
and the next day fixed for Stanley to turn his face home- 
ward and Livingstone his to the heart of Africa. At night 
the natives gave a great dance as a farewell compliment, 
and a wild, weird dance it was. Bombay wore a water- 
bucket on his head, while each carried or wore something 
grotesque or dangerous. The first was a war dance, and 
when it ended, a second and different one was started, 
accompanied by a chorus or song chanted in a slow, 
mournful tone, of which the burden was " Oh-oh-oh, the 
white man is going home." 

That night as Stanley lay and pondered on the morrow, 
when he should see the "good man'' for the last time, he 



168 THE LAST FABEWELL. 

was filled with the keenest sorrow. He had grown to love 
him like a son ; and to see him turn back alone to the 
savage life he must encounter in his great work, seemed 
like giving him over to death. 

It was a sad breakfast the two sat down to next morning. 
But it was over at last and the parting hour came. 

"Doctor," said Stanley, " I will leave two men with you 
for a couple of days, lest you may have forgotten some- 
thing, and will wait for them at Tura ; and now we must 
part — tliere is no help for it — ^^good-bye.'' 

"Oh," replied Livingstone, "I am coming with you a 
little way ; I must see you off on the road ;" and the two 
walked on side by side, their hearts burdened with grief. 

At last Stanley said : " Now, my dear doctor, the best 
friends must part, you have come far enough, let me beg 
of you to turn back." 

Livingstone stopped and, seizing Stanley's hand, said: 
"1 am grateful to you for what you have done for me* 
God guide you safe home and bless you, my friend." 

"And may God bring you safe back to us all, my 
friend," replied Stanley, with a voice choked with emotion. 
''Farewelir 

They wrung each other's hands in silence for a minute, 
and then Stanley turned away to hide his tears, murmur- 
ing : " Good-bye, doctor ; dear friend, good-bye." 

He would not have been the man he is, not to have been 
overcome at this parting ; alas, to be, as it proved, an eter- 
nal parting, so far as meeting again in this life. But this 
was not all — the doctor's faithful servants would not be 
forgotten, and, rushing forward, seized Stanley's hands and 
kissed them for their good master's sake. The stern and 
almost tyrannical man, that neither danger nor suffering 
could move, completely broke down under this last demon-i 
etration, and could recover himself only by giving the 



HOMEWARD MARCH. IC^ 

sharp order, March ! and he almost drove his men before 
him, and soon a turn in the path shut out Livingstone's 
form forever. Yes, forever, so far as the living, speaking, 
man is concerned, but shut out never from Stanley's life. 
That one man fixed his destiny for this world, and who 
knows but for the eternal ages. No wonder he said, long 
after, "My eyes grow dim at the remembrance of that 
parting. For four months and four days,'' he says, "I 
lived with him in the same house, or in the same boat, or in 
the same tent, and I never found a fault in him. I am a 
man of a quick temper, and often without sufficient cause, 
I dare say, have broken ties of friendship ; but with Liv- 
ingstone I never had cause of resentment, but each day's 
life with him added to my admiration of him." Thus, 
closed the first volume of the book of Stanley's life. 

The caravan marched wearily back, meeting with 
nothing eventful till it entered the Ugogo territory, where,, 
owing to a misunderstanding on the part of the natives,, 
who got it into their heads that Stanley meant to pass them 
without paying the accustomed tribute, a fight seemed in- 
evitable. Had it occurred, it is doubtful whether he or 
Livingstone's papers would ever have been heard of again. 
But Stanley had seemed from his infancy a child of destiny, 
and escaped here, as everywhere, by the skin of his teeth. 
It was a constant succession of toilsome, painful marches, 
even when the natives were friendly, while there was often 
a scarcity of provisions. To secure these he, at last, when 
on the borders of the wilderness of Marenga Mkali, dis- 
patched three men to Zanzibar, with a request to the consul 
there to send them back with provisions. These messengers 
were told not to halt for anything — rain, rivers or inunda- 
tions — ^but push right on. " Then," says Stanley, " with a 
loud, vigorous hurrah, we plunged into the depths of the 
wilderness which, with its eternal silence and solitude, was 



170 THE DKEADED MAKATA SWAMP. • 

far preferable to the jarring, inharmonious discord of the 
villages of the Wagogo. For nine hours we held on our 
way, starting with noisy shouts the fierce rhinoceros, the 
timid quagga and the herds of antelopes, which crowd the 
jungles of this broad Salina. On the 7th, amid a pelting 
rain, we entered Mpwapwa, where my Scotch assistant, 
Farquhar, had died/' 

In twenty-nine days they had now marched three hundred 
and thirty-eight miles. Twelve miles a day, including stop- 
pages and delays, was, in such a country, rapid marching — 
nay, almost unparalleled ; but Stanley had turned his face 
homeward and could stand no African dilly-dallying on 
the way. We cannot go into the details of this homeward 
march — to-day startled by a thousand warriors, streaming 
along on the war-path — to-morrow on the brink of a col- 
lision with the natives, the end of which no one could 
foresee — the caravan pressed on until they came to the 
neighborhood of the terrible Makata swamps, that Stanley 
had occasion so well to remember. Heavy rains had set 
in, swelling all the streams and inundating the plains, so 
that the marching was floundering through interminable 
stretches of water. Now swimming turbulent rivers — now 
camping in the midst of pestiferous swamps, and all the 
time drenched by the rain, that fell in torrents — they strug- 
gled on until, at last, they came to the dreaded Makata 
swamp. The sight that now met them was appalling, but 
tliere was no retreat, and for long hours they toiled slowly 
through it — sometimes up to their necks in water, some- 
times swimming, and where it was shallow sinking in deep 
mire. They thus fought their way on, and at last, weary, 
worn and half-starved, came to the Makata Eiver. But no 
sooner were they over this, than a lake, six miles wide, 
stretched before them. The natives warned him against 
attempting to cross it ; but nothing could stop him now. 



TEKKIBLE MAKCHIITG. 171 

and tliey all plunged in. He says : " We were soon up to 
our armpits, then the water shallowed to the knee, then we 
stepped up to the neck and waded on tiptoe, until we were 
halted on the edge of the Little Makata, which raced along 
at the rate of eight knots an hour." Fierce and rapid as it 
was, there was no course left but to swim it, and swim it 
they did. For a whole week they had been wading and 
swimming and floundering through water, till it seemed 
impossible that any one could survive such exposure, but, 
at last, came to dry ground, and to the famous walled city 
of the Sultana Limbomwenni, which we described in his 
upward journey. But the heavy rains that had inundated 
the whole country, had so swollen the river, near the banks 
on which it was situate, that the water had carried away 
the entire front wall of the town, and fifty houses with it. 
The sultana had fled and her stronghold had disappeared. 
All along the route was seen the devastating power of the 
flood as it swept, over the country, carrying away one hun- 
dred villages in its course. The fields were covered with 
debris of sand and mud, and what was a paradise when he 
went in was now a desert. With the subsidence of the 
Vy^ater the atmosphere became impregnated with miasma, 
and the whole land seemed filled with snakes, scoriDions, 
iguanas and ants, while clouds of mosquitoes darkened the 
air till life became almost intolerable. At last, on May 2d, 
after forty-seven days of incessant marching, and almost con- 
tinual suffering, they reached Kosako, where, a few minutes 
after, the three men he had sent forward arrived, bringing 
with them a few boxes of jam, two of Boston crackers, and 
some bottles of champagne ; and most welcome they were 
after the terrible journey through the Makata Valley. The 
last great obstacle (a ferry of four miles across a watery 
plain) being surmounted, the caravan approached Bago- 

mayo, and in their jubilant excitement announced its ar- 
10 



172 A CRUEL BLOW. 

rival by the firing of guns and blowing of horns, and with 
shouting hurrahs till they were hoarse. The sun was just 
sinking behind the distant forests, from which they had 
emerged and which were filled with such terrible associa- 
tions, when they entered the town, and sniffed with delight 
the fresh sea-breeze that came softly stealing inland. The 
putrid air of the swamps, the poisonous miasma that en- 
yeloped the entire country, were left far behind with want 
and famine^ and no wonder the heart was elated and their 
bounding joy found expression in exultant shouts. 

Happy in having once more reached civilization, 
Happy in the thought of his triumphant success; and 
still more happy in the joy that he believed the good 
news he brought would give to others, Stanley's heart w^as 
overflowing with kindness to all, and the world seenled 
bright to him. But, in a moment it was all dashed on 
opening the papers at Zanzibar. Scarcely one had a kind 
word for him ; on the contrary, he found nothing but 
suspicion, jealousy and detraction, and even charges of 
fabricating the w^hole story of having found Livingstone. 
He was stunned at this undeserved cruel reception of his 
declaration, and the faith in the goodness of human nature, 
with which Livingstone had inspired him, seemed about to 
give w^ay before this evidence of its meanness and little- 
ness. He could not comprehend how his simple, truthful, 
unostentatious story could awaken such unkind feelings, 
such baseless slanders. It was a cruel blow to receive, 
after all that he had endured and suffered. No wonder 
he WTOte bitter words of the kid-glove geographers, who 
criticized him, and the press that jeered at him. But he 
has had his revenge — for he has triumphed over them all. 

He now set to work to organize a caravan to send off 
to Livingstone the things he had promised, and then 
started for home. Before he lert, however, he saw tlie 



Cameron's expedition. 173 

leaders of the new expedition that had reached Zanzibar to 
go in search of Livingstone. How his arrival broke it up, 
and its reorganization under Cameron was effected, wdll be 
found related in the account given of this explorer in 
another portion of the volume. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE EXPEDITION OF THE KHEDIVE OF EGYPT TO SUPPRESS THE SLAVE TRADE— SIR SAMUEL Tf . 
BAKER PLACED AT THE HEAD OF IT— EXTENT OF THE SLAVE TRADE— OLTFIT OF THE EXPEDI- 
TION—PREPARATIONS ON A GRAND SCALE— THE ARMY— THE RENDEZVOUS AT KHARTOUM- 
FAILURE ON THE PART OF THE KHEDIVE— THE EXPEDITON STARTS— OBSTACLES MET— CUTTING 
CHANNELS FOR THE FLEET— SLOW, TOILSOME WORK— A HIPPOPOTAMUS CHARGES THE VESSEL- 
MEN BECOME SICK— BAKER SHOOTS A HIPPOPOTAMUS— A CROCODILE KILLED — THE EXPEDITION • 
^PERMANENTLY STOPPED— DISCOURAGEMENTS. 

C^IE SAMUEL W. BAKEE had been distinguished 
^-^ for his explorations in Central Africa; and his repre- 
s< stations of the evil effects produced by the slave trade on 
a country rich in soil and well peopled induced the khedive 
of Egypt to fit out an expedition to put a stop to this ne- 
farious business and give protection to the inhabitants, 
whom he claimed to be his subjects, from the ravages of 
slave-traders. Companies of brigands had been formed 
that absolutely depopulated the country by driving away 
those they did not enslave. One of these traders had 
twenty-five thousand Arabs under pay, engaged in this 
inhuman trafiic. And it w^as estimated that fifteen thou- 
sand of the khediye's subjects were engaged in this busi- 
ness. Each trader occupied a special district, and wdth his 
band of armed men kept the population in submission. It 
w^as estimated that fifty thousand negroes were annually 
captured by these land pirates. The khedive determined to 
put a stop to this, and organized an expedition for that 
purpose and put Mr. Baker at the head of it with supreme 
poW'Cr, even that over life and death. Although this was 
more than a year before Stanley started after Livingstone, 
he had talked with Baker respecting the route he intended 

174 



SIR SAMUEL baker's EXPEDITION. 175 

to take, and it was thought likely that if Livingstone was 
alive he might be working his way to the Nile, and hence 
be met by him and relieved. 

The foi'ce placed under him was to be composed of one 
thousand four hundred infantry and two batteries of artil- 
lery, with which he was to march one thousand four hundred 
and fifty miles to Gondokoro and annex the country. 

He knew that there would be more or less fighting, for 
Soudan, the home of the slave-trader, would be wholly op- 
posed to the attempt to break up their business. The or- 
ganization of the expedition was as follows : 

The English party consisted of himself and wife, Lieu- 
tenant Julian Alleyn Baker, K. IST. ; Mr. Edwin Kiggin- 
botham, civil engineer ; Mr. Wood, secretary ; Dr. Joseph 
Gedge, physician ; Mr. Marcopolo, chief storekeeper and 
interpreter ; Mr. Mc William, chief engineer of steamers ; 
Mr. Jar vis, cliief shipwright, together with three others, 
and two servants. He laid in stores suflficient to last tlie 
European j)arty four years, and provided four galvanized 
iron magazines, each eighty feet long by twenty in width, 
to protect all material. He personally selected eveiy 
article that was necessary for the expedition, at an expen- 
diture of about f 45,000. This included an admirable 
selection of Manchester goods, such as cotton sheeting, 
gray calico, cotton, and also woolen blankets, white, scarkt 
and blue ; Indian scarfs, red and yellow ; handkerchiefs 
of gaudy colors, chintz printed ; scarlet flannel shirts, 
serge of colors (blue, red), linen trousers, etc., etc. 
Tools of all sorts — axes, small hatchets, harness bells, 
brass rods, copper rods, combs, zinc mirrors, knives, 
crockery, tin plates, fish-hooks, musical boxes, colored 
prints, finger-rings, razors, tinned spoons, cheap watches, 
etc., etc. 

He thus had sufficient clothing for a considerable body 



17G ar:rangements for transport. 

of troops, if necessary, while the magazines coula produce 
anything from a needle to a crowbar or from a handker- 
chief to a boat's sail. It will be seen hereafter that these 
careful preparations secured the success of the expedition, 
as the troops when left without pay could procure all they 
required from the apparently inexhaustible stores of the 
magazines. 

In addition to the merchandise and general supplies, he 
had several large musical boxes with bells and drums, an 
excellent magic lantern, a magnetic battery, wheels of life, 
and an assortment of toys. The greatest wonder to the 
natives were two large girandoles ; also the silvered balls, 
about six inches in diameter, that, suspended from the 
branches of a tree, reflected the scene beneath. 

" In every expedition," he says, " the principal difficulty 
is the transport. 

" ' Travel light, if possible,' is the best advice for all 
countries ; but in this instance it was simply impossible, 
as the object of the expedition was not only to convey 
steamers to Central Africa, but to establish legitimate 
trade in the place of the nefarious system of pillage 
hitherto adopted by the so-called White Nile traders. It 
was therefore absolutely necessary to possess a large stock 
of goods of all kinds, in addition to the machinery and 
steel sections of steamers. 

^' I arranged that the expedition should start in three 
divisions. 

"Six steamers, varying from forty to eighty horse-power, 
were ordered to leave Cairo in June, together with fifteen 
sloops and fifteen diahbeeahs — total, thirty-six vessels — to 
ascend the cataracts of the Nile to Khartoum, a distance, 
by river, of about one thousand four hundred and fifty 
miles. These vessels were to convey the whole of the mer • 
chandise. ' 



bakee's militaky force. 177 

" Twenty-five vessels were ordered to be in readiness at 
Khartoum, together with three steamers. The governor- 
general (Djiaffer Pasha), was to provide these vessels by a 
certain date, together with the camels and horses necessary 
for the land transport. 

" Thus, when the fleet should arrive at Khartoum from 
Cairo, the total force of vessels would be, nine steamers 
and fifty-five .sailing vessels, the latter averaging about 
fifty tons each. 

" I arranged to bring up the rear by another route, via. 
Sonakim, on the Red Sea, from which the desert journey 
to Berber, on the Nile, north latitude 17°, 37', is two hun- 
dred and seventy-five statute miles. 

^^ My reason for this division of routes was to insure a 
quick supply of camels, as much delay would have been 
occasioned had the great mass of transport been conveyed 
by one road. 

^'The military arrangements comprised a force of one 
thousand six hundred and forty-five troops, including a 
corps of two hundred irregular cavalry and two batteries 
of artillery. The infantry were two regiments supposed 
to be well selected. The black, or Soudani, regiment in- 
cluded many officers and men who had served for some 
years in Mexico with the French army, under Marshal 
Bazaine. The Egyptian regiment turned out to be, for the 
most part, convicted felons, who had been transported for 
various crimes from Egypt to the Soudan. 

" The artillery were rifled mountain-guns of bronze, the 
barrel weighing two hundred and thirty pounds and throw- 
ing shells of eight and a quarter pounds. The authorities 
at Woolwich had kindly supplied the expedition with two 
hundred Hale's rockets — three pounders — and fifty Snider 
rifles, together with fifty thousand rounds of Snider 
ammunition. The military force and supplies were to 



178 THE FLEET DELAYED. 

be massed in Khartoum ready to meet me upon my 
arrival. 

^'A train of forty-one railway wagons laden with section? 
of steamers, machinery, boiler sections, etc., etc., arrived at 
Cairo and were embarked on board eleven hired vessels. 
With the greatest difficulty, I procured a steamer of one 
hundred and forty horse-power to tow this flotilla to Ko- 
rosko, from which spot the desert journey w^ould commence. 
I obtained this steamer only by personal apjDlication to the 
khedive. 

*^0n the 5th of December, 1869, we brought up the 
rear, and left Suez on board an Egyptian sloop-of-war, the 
Senaar. In four days and a half we reached Sonakim, 
after an escape from wreck on the reef of Shadwan, and a 
close acquaintance with a large barque, with which we 
nearly came into collision. 

" We anchored safely in the harbor of Sonakim, and 
landed my twenty-one horses without accident. 

*^ I was met by the governor, my old friend, Moontazz 
Bey, a highly intelligent Circassian officer,- who had shown 
me much kindness in my former exjDedition. 

" A week's delay in Sonakim was necessary in order to 
obtain camels. In fourteen days wc crossed the desert, tw^o 
hundred and seventy-five miles, to Berber on the Nile, and 
found a steamer and diahbeeah in readiness. We arrived 
at Kbartoum,a distance of two hundred miles by water, in 
three days, having accomplished the journey from Suez in 
the short space of thirty-two days, including stoppages." 

But while he had j)ushed forward with great speed he 
found, when he reached Khartoum, that his fleet had not 
arrived. None of the steamers from Cairo had passed the 
cataracts, the fifteen sloops on which he had depended for 
the transportation of camels had returned, while only a 
few small vessels were above the cataract. The first division, 



START OF THE EXPEDITION. 181 

consisting of the merchandise, had arrived, and he heard 
that a train of a thousand camels with all his machinery 
and steamers were slowly traversing the desert to meet him, 
while the third division soon came up. Thus everything 
had moved like clockw^ork exce23t that portion of the expe- 
dition especially under the charge of the khedive. Mr. 
Baker now urged the governor to purchase vessels, and in 
a few weeks thirty-three of fifty or sixty tons each, such as 
they were, were rigged for the voyage of one thousand four 
hundred and fifty miles to Gondokoro. He found that the 
two hundred and fifty cavalry sent to him were worthless 
and dismissed them. 

On tlie 8tli of February he was ready to start, and 
having embraced the black pasha, a host of boys and a fat 
colonel, that he could not reach around, the bugles rung 
cheerily out, and two steamers of thirty-two and. twenty- 
four horse-power, and thirty-one sailing vessels, carrying a 
military force of eight hundred men, moved off under a 
salute from shore. Among these were forty-six men se- 
lected from two regiments, half black and half white, whi(;h 
were to serve as a body-guard. They were armed wiJh 
Snider rifles, and Baker named them " the forty thieve.^.'' 
Sweeping down to the White Nile, they began to ascend it 
under a strong wind from the north. The White Nile i^ a 
grand river up to the junction of the Sobat, when it becomes 
impassable on account of the masses of vegetation that cover 
it, and floating islands. He here entered the Bahr Girafie, a 
stream some two hundred and fifty feet wide but very deep 
and winding. Up this they slowly worked their way for 
two weeks, when they came to so much drift vegetation 
that it took four hours to force a passage through it. The 
next day, February 26th, the obstructions increased, and a 
canal one hundred and fifty yards long had to be cut. 
Large masses of tangled grass, resembling sugar-canes, had 



182 CHAEGE OF A HIPPOPOTAMUS. 

to be cut out with swords and tlien towed away by ropes. 
Having at length cleared a passage they pushed on. 

The next day similar obstructions had to be removed, 
and the day after, just after starting, they were surprised 
to find tlie river, though fourteen feet deep, had suddenly 
disappeared. The entire surface was covered with matted 
vegetation, under which the invisible river swept on. 
They now returned down the river eighty miles to their 
old wooding-place. On the way back they met the fleet, 
composed of one steamer and twenty-five vessels, coming 
up with a good supply of wood and bringing the troops, 
which were in good health — one man alone missing, he 
having been carried off by a crocodile while sitting with 
his legs dangling over the side of the vessel. Two days 
after, a brisk wind sprang u]^ and the vessels started off 
again. At one o'clock. Baker, who happened to be sleep- 
ing on the poop-deck, was suddenly awakened by a heavy 
shock, succeeded by cries of ''the ship is sinking." A 
hippopotamus had charged the steamer's bottom and 
snmsLed several floats from one of her paddles. The next 
instant he charged the diahbeeah, or boat, and striking her 
bottom about ten feet from her bow wnth his tusks, drove 
two holes through her iron plating, letting the water in 
with a rush. All hands fell to and unloaded as rapidly as 
possible. They then pumped out the water, and with 
some thick felt and white lead sto23ped the leak. 

At length they came to where the river disa|)peared, 
and Baker, though he did not know how far this level 
plain of vegetation extended, ordered seven hundred men 
to cut a channel. The next day they cut a mile and a 
half with their swords and knives, piling up the stringy 
mass on either side like a bank. It was deadly w^ork, 
and at night thirty-two men were taken sick. Five days 
of terrible work finally brought them through it, and they 




« M 



! (if iii 



CUTTING CHANNELS FOR THE BOAT. 18d 

entered on a lake a half a mile wide with its ripples 
dancing in the sunlight. A loud shout went up at the 
sight, while bugles and drums filled the air with glad 
sounds. But the farther end was choked up with the 
same matted vegetation. It was, however, cleared away in 
an hour, when they emerged on another lake, but its far- 
ther extremity was closed up solid, and Baker, from the 
mast-head, could discern nothing but rotten vegetation as 
far as the eye could reach. This was discouraging, but 
only two courses lay before him — return or cut his way 
through. He determined on the latter, and by probing 
the marsh with long poles he discovered the deep channel 
underneath and set the men to clear it, and soon the 
stream was black with swimmers hard at work. The men 
became sick and dispirited, for there seemed no end to 
their toil. Besides, the marsh was filled with snakes, one 
of which crawled into Baker's boat. 

In three days, however, they had cut a canal to a third 
and larger lake some two and a half miles long. On 
exploring this, another lake was discovered ahead, with 
only a slight obstruction between. All was wild and 
desolate around, and now, as the sun stooped to the west, 
in the south great clouds began to roll up the heavens and 
the deep thunder broke heavily along the sky. The fleet 
coming up slowly began to assemble on the lake prepara- 
tory to passing the night. The paddles had to be taken 
off, as the channel was made no wider than absolutely 
necessary, and they were towed through. This retarded 
their progress, and it became doubtful when they could be 
used again. Thus their chief reliance became a hindrance, 
for instead of towing they had to be towed. Here Baker 
killed a hippopotamus. He says : 

" About half an hour before sunset I observed the head 
of a hippopotamus emerge from the bank of high grass 



18G SHOOTING A HIPPOPOTAMUS. 

that fringed the lake. My troops had no meat — and 1 
must not lose the opportunity of jDrocuring, if posslhie, a 
supply of hippopotamus beef. I took a Reilly, Xo. 8, 
breech-loader, and started in the little dingy belonging to 
the diahbeeah. Having paddled quietly along the edge 
of the grass for a couple of hundred of yards, I arrived at 
the spot from which the hippopotamus had emerged. It is 
the general habit of the hippopotami in these marsh dis- 
tricts to lie in the high-grass swamps during the day, and 
to swim or amuse themselves in the open water at sunset. 
I had not waited long before I heard a snort, and I per- 
ceived the hippopotamus had risen to the surface, about 
fifty yards from me. This distance was a little too great 
for the accurate firing necessary to reach the brain, espe- 
cially when the shot must be taken from a boat in which 
there is always some movement. I therefore allowed the 
animal to disappear, after which I immediately ordered the 
boat forward, to remain exactly over the spot where he had 
sunk. A few minutes elapsed, when the great, ugly head 
of the hippopotamus appeared about thirty paces from the 
boat, and having blown the water from his nostrils and 
snorted loudly, he turned around and appeared astonished 
to find the solitary little boat so near him. Telling the two 
boatmen to sit perfectly quiet, so as to allow a good sight, 
I aimed just below the eye, and fired a heavy shell, which 
contained a bursting charge of three drachms of fine-grained 
powder. The head disappeared. A little smoke hung 
over the water, and I could not observe other effects. The 
lake was deep, and after vainly sounding for the body with 
a boat-hook, I returned to the diahbeeah just as it became 
dark." 

The next day the body of the hippopotamus was found 
floating near them, and all hands turned to to cut him up, 
delighted with the prospect of fresh meat. A pouring rain 



DISPATCHING A CROCODILE. 191 

isoon after set in, wetting the cargoes and stores of the 
miserable vessels. 

The next day, while digging the steamers out of the 
vegetable rafts that, after they had been cut away by the 
men to make a canal, had drifted into the lake, they felt 
something struggling beneath their feet. They had hardly 
scrambled away from the place when the huge head of a 
crocodile protruded through the mass. The men imme- 
diately fell upon him with bill-hooks and swords, and soon 
dispatched him, and that night made a good supper off his 
flesh. 

They now kept on, day after day, it being a continual 
succession of marshes and open patches of water. The 
men grew more discouraged and heart-broken. One sol- 
dier died, but there was not a foot of dry ground in which 
to bury him. Day after day it was the same monoto- 
nous, disheartening, slow pushing up this half-hidden 
stream. Another man died, and how many more would 
follow before the fifteen miles of marsh that now lay before 
tliem was cut through, none could tell. By March 26th, 
six more had died and one hundred and fifty were on the 
sick-list. Two days after Mr. Baker killed another hip- 
popotamus. On the 30th, they got once more into the open 
river, with dry land on both banks. As they were poling 
along wild buffaloes were seen on the bank, one of which 
Lieutenant Baker killed, while Mr. Baker wounded 
another. 

They had now been fifty-one days toiling up this miser- 
able stream, the men almost constantly in the water, cut- 
ting a channel ; and just as things became to look hopeful, 
they were suddenly stopped. The water became so shallow 
that everything grounded, and Mr. Baker, going ahead for 
three miles in a row-boat, found the river dividing into 
shallow channels, which made farther advance impossible. 



102 BAKER NOT DISCOUBAGED. 

This, then, was the end of it all — the end of nearly twc 
months' incessant toil and suffering. All were thoroughly 
<lisiieartened. Instead of cutting their way to open water, 
they had reached solid land. Nearly two months of con- 
stant toil had been wasted, and w^orse than that, so much 
mnst be taken out of the time allowed him to perform his 
work. It was enough to discourage any man ; but Baker 
was too old an explorer to give up because he was com- 
pelled to turn back for awhile. 



CHAPTEE XIL 



THE RETUKN. 



«AXER'S heroic wife— a SLAVEK caught— a sickening spectacle— EREEDOM-DESCRirrWyjr 
OF THE CAMP— A CARGO OF SLAVES DISCOVERED— SLAVES FREED— WI^PLESALE MATRIMONY-^- 
EXPLORING THE WHITE NILE— A NEW START— A NEW LAKE— THE WHITE NILE REACHED AT 
LAST— A FIERCE NIGHT ATTACK BY A HIPPOPOTAMUS— A THRILLING SCENE— GONDOKORO AT 
LAST REACHED. 



THEEE was now nothing left to do but to return, and 
April 3d, with a heavy heart. Baker gave the neces- 
sary orders. But he had no intention of abandoning his 
object. He was determined the next season to return by 
the same route and cut his way through to the Nile. He, 
however, communicated his resolve to no one but his heroic 
wife and Lieutenant Baker. One of the most remarkable 
features of this expedition was the presence of this solitary 
lady, who, rejecting the comforts and luxuries, of a home 
which were hers, resolved to accompany her husband into 
the heart of Africa — braving fever, toil and probable death 
to stand by his side and share his fate, with the possibility 
■of being left alone, as she would be in case her husband 
fell before disease or the bullet of the savages, she thought 
only of being by his side if struck down by sickness, or 
perchance to save him in the hour of danger. Cool, self- 
possessed, fearless and full of resources, she became his 
guardian angel and stands out in bold relief in this danger- 
ous expedition as one of the most remarkable characters 
in it. 

Not much of interest attended this return trip — to-day 

193 



104 CAPTURING A SLAVER. 

stalking an antelope, to-morrow shooting a hippopotamus 
or crocodile, or bagging some wild fowl, made up the most 
exciting incidents. 

April 20th, just below the junction of the Bahr-Giraffe 
with the White NilCj he came in sight of one of the gov- 
ernors' vessels of this district, and, watching it through his- 
powerful telescope, he noticed suspicious movements on 
board of her, and thought he saw a number of people 
driven on board. Coming down stream at the rate of 
eight miles an hour, he soon ranged up along side the 
l>ank on which the governor's tent was pitched, and invited 
Ixim on board. He told him of the impossibility of ad- 
vancing that year by the way of the Bahr-Giraffe and had 
tlierefore returned. After some conversation with him,, 
and putting some close questions as to certain movements 
he had noticed, Baker sent his aid-de-camp to visit the 
^ressels lying near. The result was the discovery of a gang 
of slaves. Mr. Baker then politely requested to be shown 
round the encampment on shore. To his h6rror, he found 
a mass of slaves squatted on the ground — many of the 
Avomen secured by ropes round the neck, and amid the 
filthy fetid mass, not only children but infants. Altogether,, 
on the boats and on shore, were found one hundred and 
fifty-five slaves. Though this territory was not in Baker's 
jurisdiction, as fixed by the khedive, yet he insisted on the 
liberation of the slaves, and though the governor rebelled 
at first, he, at length, on being threatened with the wrath 
of the khedive, yielded, and the naked, astonished crowd 
of slaves dej^arted with loud discordant yells of rejoicing 
to their distant homes. 

Mr. Baker now determined to establish a permanent 
camp, and selecting a forest on a bank near the junction 
of the Sobat, commenced operations. He had passed the 
junction of this river on his way up in the middle of Feb- 



PLAGUE OF FLIES. 195 

ruary, and now in the latter part of April he found him- 
self there again, having accomplished nothing except to 
learn how apparently impossible was the route in that 
direction. More than two months had been passed, and 
the total result of his efforts could be summed up in the 
death report of the number that had sunk before the ex- 
posures they had to meet in the pestiferous country they 
had traversed. Mr. Baker says in his journal : 

" I gave the name Tewfikeeyah to the new station, which 
rapidly grew into a place of importance. It was totally 
unlike an Egyptian camp, as all the lines were straight. 
Deep ditches, cut in every direction, drained the station to 
the river. I made a quay about five hundred yards in 
length, on the bank of the river, by which the whole fleet 
could lie and embark or disembark cargo. A large stable 
contained the twenty horses, which by great care had kept 
their condition. It was absolutely necessary to keep them 
in a dark stable on account of the flies which attacked all 
animals in swarms. Even within the darkened building it 
was necessary to light fires composed of dried horse-dung, 
to drive away these persecuting insects. The hair fell 
completely ofl* the ears and legs of the donkeys (which 
were allowed to ramble about) owing to the swarms of flies 
which irritated the skin ; but in spite of the comparative 
comfort of a stable, the donkeys preferred a life of' out-door 
independence, and fell ofi" in condition if confined to a 
house. The worst flies were the small gray ones with a long 
proboscis, similar to those that are often seen in houses in 
England. 

" In an incredibly short time the station fell in shape. 
I constructed three magazines of galvanized iron, each 
eighty feet in length, and the head storekeeper, Mr. Mar- 
copolo, at last completed his arduous task of storing the 
immense amount of supplies that had been contained in the 
fleet of vessels. 

n 



196 AVIIITE NILE KATS. 

"This introduced us to the White Nile rats, which vol- 
unteered their services in thousands, and quickly took pos- 
session of the magazines by tunneling beneath and ap- 
pearing in the midst of a rat's paradise, among thousands 
of bushels of rice, biscuits, lentils, etc. The destruction 
-caused by these animals was frightful. They gnawed holes 
in the sacks, and the contents poured upon the ground like 
sand from an hour-glass, to be immediately attacked and 
devoured by white ants. There was no lime in the coun- 
try, nor stone of any kind, thus it was utterly impossible to 
stop the ravages of white ants except by the constant labor 
of turning over the vast masses of boxes and stores, to 
cleanse them from the earth ern galleries which denote the 
presence of the termites. 

" I had European vegetable seeds of all kinds, and 
having cleared and grubbed a portion of forest, we quickly 
established gardens. The English quarter was particularly 
neat. The various j)lots were separated by fences, and the 
ground was under cultivation for about two acres, extend- 
ing to the margin of the river. I did not build a house 
for myself, as we Y^vefevred our comfortable diahbeeah, 
which was moored alongside the garden, from the entrance of 
which a walk led jto a couple of large, shady mimosas that 
formed my public divan, where all visitors were received. 

" In a short time we had above ground sweet melons, 
watermelons, pumpkins, cabbages, tomatoes, cauliflowers, 
beet root, parsley, lettuce, celery, etc.; but all the peas, 
beans, and a very large selection of maize that I had 
received from England were destroyed during the voyage. 
Against my express orders the box had been hermetically 
sealed, and the vitality of the larger seeds was entirely 
gone. Seeds- should be simply packed in brown paper 
bags and secured in a basket." 

In a few weeks a marvelous change had taken place in 



A SLAVE CARGO. 197 

this uninhabited wilderness. In addition to the long rows 
of white tents and iron magazines which had been erected, 
a hundred neat huts stood arranged in an exact line. 
These, besides various workshops and the sound of lathes, 
saws, and the hammer and anvil filled the forests with 
strange, unwonted sights and sounds. Here he killed his 
first ostrich, notwithstanding his long travels in Africa. 
He was now located where the governor could be detected 
in his nefarious business as slave-trader, (Avhich he stoutly 
denied,) as all cargoes w^ould have to come down the Sobat 
•directly past his encampment. A watch was kept up, and 
in less than a week it was rewarded by the outlook seeing 
s. vessel descending the river ; and although taken by sur- 
prise at the number of vessels moored to the bank, the 
stranger made no signal, but, keeping the middle of the 
river, endeavored to pass. This looked suspicious, and 
Baker sent a boat with the orders to halt, and directed his 
aide-de-camp, Abd-el-Kader, to go on board to inquire 
about her cargo. She had a quantity of corn stowed in 
bulk, nothing else, beside her crew and a few soldiers, said 
the captain, who was indignant at being suspected of any- 
thing wrong. But there seemed an awkward smell about 
the cargo, and Abd-el-Kader, drawing a steel ramrod from 
a soldier's rifle, ran it into the corn ; a smothered cry, fol- 
lowed by a woolly head, was the result, and a negro woman 
was pulled out by the wrist. 

" The corn was at once removed ; the planks which 
boarded up the forecastle and the stern were broken down, 
and there was a mass of humanity exposed, boys, girls and 
women closely packed like herrings in a barrel, who under 
the fear of threats had remained perfectly silent until thus 
discovered. The sail attached to the mainyard of the 
vessel appeared full and heavy in the lower part ; this was 
examined, and, upon unpacking it, yielded a young woman 
who had thus been sewn up to avoid discovery. 



198 SETTING THE CAPTIVES FREE. 

" The case was immediately reported to me. I at once 
ordered the vessel to be unloaded. We discovered one 
hundred and fifty slaves stowed away in a most inconceiv- 
ably small area. The stench was horrible when they 
began to move. Many were in irons ; these were quickly 
released by the blacksmiths, to the astonishment of the 
captives, who did not appear to understand the proceedings. 
I ordered the rakeel and the reis, or captain of the vessel, 
to be put in irons. The slaves began to comprehend that 
their captors were now captives. They now began to 
spea^, and many declared that the greater portion of the 
men of their villages had been killed by the slave-hunters. 

" Having weighed the ivory and counted the tusks, I had 
the vessel reloaded ; and, having placed an officer with a 
guard on board, I sent her to Khartoum to be confiscated 
as a slaver. I ordered the slaves to wash, and issued 
clothes from the magazines for the naked women. 

" On the following day I inspected the captives, and I 
explained to them their exact position. They were free 
people, and if their homes were at a reasonable distance,, 
they should be returned; if not, they must make them- 
selves generally useful, in return for which they would be 
fed and clothed. If any of the women wished to marry,, 
there were many fine young men in the regiments who 
would make capital husbands. I gave each person a paper 
of freedom, signed by myself. This was contained in a 
hollow reed, and suspended round their necks. Their 
names, approximate age, sex and country were registered 
in a book corresponding with the number on their papers. 

" These arrangements occupied the whole morning. In 
the afternoon I again inspected them. Having asked the 
officers whether any of the negresses would wish to be 
married, he replied that all the women wished to marry, 
and that they had already selected their husbands ! This 



MATRIMONIAL ENGAGEMENTS. 199 

was wholesale matrimony, that required a church as large 
as Westminster Abbey and a whole company of clergy. 

" Fortunately, matters are briefly arranged in Africa. I 
saw the loving couples standing hand in hand. Some of 
the girls were pretty, and my black troops had shown good 
taste in their selection. Unfortunately, however, for the 
Egyptian regiment, the black ladies had a strong antipathy 
to brown men, and the suitors were all refused. This was 
a very awkward affair. The ladies having received their 
freedom, at once asserted ' woman's rights.' 

"I was obliged to limit the matrimonial engagements, 
and those who were for a time condemned to single bless- 
edness were placed in charge of certain officers to perform 
the cooking for the troops and other domestic work. I 
divided the boys into classes ; some I gave to the English 
workmen to be instructed in carpenters' and blacksmiths' 
work ; others were apprenticed to tailors, shoemakers, etc., 
in the regiment, while the best-looking were selected as 
domestic servants. A nice little girl of about three years 
old, without parents, was taken care of by my wife. 

"Little Mostoora, as the child was called, was an exceed^ 
ingly clever specimen of her race, and although she was 
certainly not more than three years old, she was quicker 
than most children double her age. With an ugly little 
face, she had a beautifully shaped figure, and possessed a 
power of muscle that I have never seen in a white child of 
that age. Her lot had fallen in pleasant quarters; she 
was soon dressed in convenient clothes, and became the pet 
of the family." 

He spent some time now in exploring the White Nile 
and perfecting his arrangements for a new start. Many 
difficulties had presented themselves, and complications of 
various kinds arose, owing to the hostility of the traders to 
the object of his expedition. 



200 DEATH OF THE BLIND SHEIKH. 

Baker had determined on starting for Gondokoro from 
Tewfikeoyah, where he arrived on October 22d, and imme- 
diately commenced his preparations. The river was then 
at its maximum, and had risen at this spot from the lowest 
level of the dry season, fourteen feet and one inch. 

There was an old blind sheikh who frequently visited 
Baker from the other side of the river, and this poor old 
fellow came to a most untimely end when returning one 
day w^ith his son from marketing at Tewfikeeyah. Baker 
was walking on the temporary quay he had constructed,, 
when all at once he heard a great commotion and saw a 
splashing in the river, on the surface of which w^ere float- 
ing the fragments of a native canoe. There happened at 
the time to be several other canoes on the river, several of 
which at once went to the rescue of the two men, who could 
be seen struggling in the water. It appeared that a hippo- 
potamus had made a sudden and savage attack on the 
canoe, and seized it in his mouth, together with the poor 
old blind sheikh, who could not see or avoid the danger. 
The brute crushed the frail boat to pieces, and so lacerated 
and mangled the old man that, although he was picked up 
alive, he died during the night. 

While getting ready for a start, thoroughly repairing 
and recalking the vessels which w^er« to form part of the 
fleet, he occupied a small Bobinson-Crusoe-like house^ 
which he had built for himself ashore ; and here, only a 
very short time previous to his departure, he had a very 
narrow escape from being robbed. 

About four o'clock in the morning, he was wakened by a 
noise in the room adjoining to that in which he was sleep- 
ing, and, on listening, he distinctly heard the lid of a metal 
box opened and again carefully closed. He always slept 
with a pistol under his pillow, so, grasping his revolver, he 
made one jump from his bed, which, however, at that mo- 



COMPLETIJS^G THE DEPARTURE. 203 

ment creaked so loudly as to give the alarm to the thief, 
^nd Baker, on rushing through the open doorway, was just 
in time to see a man jump through the Venetian blinds on 
the river side of the house. To fire a shot after the re- 
treating figure and shout for the sentry was the work of an 
instant, but the would-be thief managed to escape, and no 
trace was ever found of him. 

But everything at last being ready, the first division of 
the fleet, consisting of eight vessels, having started on De- 
<?ember 1st, followed up every third or fourth day by an- 
other division. Baker himself brought up the rear, on 
December 11th, completing the departure, with twenty-six 
vessels, making quite a formidable fleet with which to 
pierce to the centre of Africa. 

The extensive and neat station of Tewfikeeyah, where 
he had been so long, was completely dismantled. The 
iron magazines, with their contents, were safely stowed in 
the different vessels ; the horses were shipped, the stables 
being all pulled down and the wood cut up for fuel. The 
long rows of white tents were struck, and nothing remained 
of the station save a few rows of deserted huts. It seemed 
almost impossible that so large a place as Tewfikeeyah 
could be packed up and showed away on board the fifty- 
nine vessels of the fleet. 

Baker had made every preparation for cutting through 
the Sudd, having on hand many hundred sharp bill-hooks, 
switching-hooks, bean -hooks, sabres, etc., also several hun- 
dred miners' spades, shovels, etc., in the event of there 
being a necessity of deepening the shallows. 

The Nile was unusually high, which was a favorable 
point for the voyage, as the success of the expedition 
depended on their crossing the shallows during the flood. 

To attempt to give a general description of this voyage 
iirould be impossible, so we shall give a few extracts from 



204 TERRIBLE NEWS X VESSEL SUNK. 

Baker's original journal, mentioning the most striking 
incidents that occurred. 

On December 11th, 1870, we find this entry: "Thank 
goodness, we are off, and in good time, as the river is 
exceedingly high, though it has already fallen about five 
inches from its maximum. 

" December 12th. — About 2.30 A. M. we were hailed by 
two noggurs (vessels) in distress. Stopped immediately,, 
and learned that the No. 15 noggur, their consort, had 
sunk in deep water close to this spot. At daybreak, 
searched the river and discovered the wreck in eighteen 
feet of water. Two good divers worked for hours, and 
recovered several, muskets and copper cooking pots. Leav- 
ing the wholesale wreck, we continued the voyage at 
10.50 A. M., with a brisk north wind. 

" December 17th. — In the afternoon, the two diahbeeaht 
of the Englishmen came up and gave us the terrible news 
that one of the vessels had sunk near the mouth of the 
river Sobat, on the day of our departure from Tewfikeeyah. 
This vessel was laden with portions of the steamer of fifty 
feet.'* 

As the loss of the steamer sections and machinery with 
which this vessel was laden would have been fatal to the 
object of the expedition. Baker at once proceeded to the 
spot, and after waiting for soipe days for the arrival of 
assistance from the king, Quat Kan, to whom he had dis- 
patched a messenger, on the 27th December about two 
hundred and fifty shillooks, under the command of old 
Quat Kan himself, arrived. TVcy proceeded to lighten 
the vessel, and by means of sunken kyasses well secured 
to the vessel with chains, they succeeded in dragging the 
vessel from the river's bed, bringing her to the surface and 
discovering and stopping the leaks. 

On January 9th, Baker reached the mouth of an old 



FRESH PERPLEXITIES. 207 

channel where he had been the preceding year, and found 
it completely blocked up by an accumulation of floating 
rafts. Here they were frequently stopped by vegetation, 
through which they had to cut their way. At this stop- 
page, Baker shot a specimen of the Baleniceps Rex with a 
rifle. The powerful, spear-like beak of this bird is used 
by the natives for crushing the shells of the large helix 
and other mollusks of the White Nile. 

For days succeeding this they made but slow progress, 
sometimes not over three hundred yards in a whole day, 
which had to be cut through heavy rafts of vegetation. 

On January 18th, Baker entered the Lake Timsah 
(Crocodile Lake), which appeared to him from his mast- 
head to be an unbroken sheet of water for some miles ; but 
he found out early the next day that he must have been 
deceived by a mirage, as they were again hindered in 
their onward progress by the same obstructions as before. 

He soon found a new channel coming from the south, 
which he explored about two miles, it appearing to be a 
river of some two to three hundred yards wide. Baker 
pushed ahead in the dingy till all seemed closed again, but 
finally succeeded in reaching the old channel, and through 
which they entered into a lake where a year before he had 
buried two artillerymen in an ant-hill. 

Tayib Agha, who had twelve vessels with him, had not 
yet come in sight, which fact gave Baker much uneasiness ; 
as, should any accident occur, he would be at a loss how to 
act ; and, to add to perplexities, Julian was very sick with 
a fever. However, nothing would do but to push ahead. 
They here observed the tree, at about a mile and a half 
distant, which marked the open water of last year. A soli- 
tary dry spot near this is the very heart of desolation ; it is 
about half an acre, raised like the back of a huge tortoise, 
about five feet' above the highest water level, upon which 



208 FOECING THEIR WAY ONWAED. 

crocodiles in great numbers love to bask in undisturbed 
sleep. 

They soon passed the lake, and found the depth of the 
river again very unsatisfactory — ^varying from shallows 
with vegetable obstructions to deep channels as before. 

The journal of the slow ascent of the river during this 
month and the next is monotonous, relieved only now and 
thsn by some accident or the killing of game. Over the 
same ground, cutting the same canals, the expedition forced 
its weary way onward — sometimes discharging cargoes in 
the mud to lighten vessels over shallows — in one case, cut- 
ting a channel six hundred yards long through stiff clay, 
and advanced so slowly that it did not seem difficult to tell 
where this strange inland navigation with such a fleet 
would end. But at last, on the 9th of March, they emerged 
into a lake five miles long, from the extremity of which 
they found a stream, only a mile and a quarter long, flowing 
directly into the great White Nile above all its obstructions. 
'• Thank God !" was echoed from all lips. Still it required 
great labor to get the fleet up to this point which Baker 
had reached in his exploring boat. A dam had to be made 
to float them to the lake, a work of imm.ense labor ; but it 
was at length completed and the fleet brought safely up. 
Mr. Baker killed that day two hippopotami, and the lake 
seemed to be full of them. 

The night was clear and cool and the moon silvered this 
lovely lake with her brightness, while the deck was 
covered with sleepers under their mosquito nets, and all 
was still, when suddenly Mr. Baker was aroused by a loud 
splash close to his boat, accompanied with the loud snort 
of a hippopotamus. Jumping up he saw a huge fellow 
making straight for the boat. Instantly tearing away the 
strings that held the mosquito netting in its place, he 
aroused the sleepers and shouted to liis servant to bring his 






Fig. X. 





¥is»> 



Ei&3* 




rift 4 



^5* 



*?«• 



1.— Packet of plaited rope, In the exact shape as presented by the natives. , 

3 =ikSu if k'eBa?inSeps Rex. The powerful spear-like beak is used for crushing the 

shells of the large helix and other molluscs. 
4.— The iron molote. or sjKade, one-third of the original size. 
6.— Pipe howl. 



A DESPERATE FIGHT. 211 

rifle. But before it could be brought, tbe furious animal, 
with one blow, capsized and sunk the zinc boat. He then 
seized the dingy in his immense jaws and Baker heard, with 
rage, his favorite boat crack. The servant hurried up with 
the rifle but it was unloaded. In the meantime, the people 
were shouting and screaming at the top of their voices to 
scare away the beast, which, however, paid no attention to 
them, and kept up his ferocious attack. Baker now returned 
with a loaded rifle, but the beast charged and plunged so 
rapidly that it was difficult to get a fair shot. In a few 
moments, however, he come straight for the boat again. 
The moon was shining bright, and Baker planted a shot 
in his ugly head. It stopped him but a moment, however, 
and he charged again. Baker now kept up a rapid fire, 
till, at length, the beast appeared to be badly wounded, 
and, crawling to the bank, lay down on the grass blowing 
and snorting. Thinking he would die. Baker returned to 
bed again and fell asleep, but was soon awakened by a loud 
splash. Jumping up, he saw the animal, furious and 
strong as ever, dashing full on the boat. But a bullet in 
the head sent him rolling over down the stream. But he 
soon recovered and came thrashing back. He did not 
repeat his attack, but retired to the shore, where he re- 
mained snorting and blowing. Baker again went to bed, 
when he was awakened the third time by a loud splashing 
in the water. Bising, he saw the animal slowly walking 
across the stream broadside to. This gave him a fair shot, 
and he planted two balls in his shoulder. He, however, 
kept on, and, reaching the right bank, turned round and 
attempted to walk back again. This gave Baker a chance 
at the other side, when a well-planted shot rolled him over, 
dead. In the morning, on examination, it was discovered 
that he had received three shots in the side and shoulder, 
four in the head, while another had passed through his 



212 ARRIVED AT GONDOKORO. 

nose. Beside this, liis body was covered with old scars — » 
one two feet long — showing that he was a desperate fighter, 
and had had many savage encounters with bulls of his own 
species. 

The work of getting through to the White Nile now 
re-commenced, and, being safely accomplished, the fleet in 
a, month from that time reached Gondokoro, its great ob- 
jective point. This was the 15th of April, or four months 
from the time he last set out. On this very day, Stanley 
was climbing the Kira Peak, on his way to Livingstone. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

THB COTrtTTRY FORMALLY TAKEN POSSESSION OF— WAR AT LAST— A NIGHT ATl'ACK ON A NATTVB 
VILLAGE— DISAFFECTION IN THE ARMY— ATTACKED BY CROCODILES— AN OLD MAN-EATEB 
KILLED— A CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE ENEMY— THE ARMY PROPOSE TO RETURN HOME— BAKER 
OBTAINS CORN AND RESTORES SUBORDINATION— THE ARMY GREATLY REDUCED— A FIGHT— 
TARGET-SHOOTING AT MEN. 

MR. BAKER had thus accomplished his one thou- 
sand nine hundred and fifty-six miles from Khar- 
toum, surmounting difiiculties that would have daunted 
most men. This was to be the central point of the new 
territory he was to annex in the name of the khedive. 
He immediately sent for the chief Alloron, and told him the 
object for which he had come, but was not well received. 
In the meantime his men were set to work making garden, 
and in a few days it was well planted. The Baris, a war- 
like tribe in the vicinity, Baker expected to have trouble 
with, and prepared early to meet it. 

The next month, on May 26th, he had fixed for the 
official annexation of the country to Egypt, but which, by 
the way, she had no more right to than we to the Indian 
territory. The troops, one thousand four hundred strong, 
in clean, bright uniforms, were paraded around the flag- 
stafi*; the ofiicial proclamation, declaring that the khedive 
took possession of the country, was then read ; the flag was 
run up the stafip, saluted by the officers with their drawn 
swords, the artillery fired a salute, and the ceremony was 
over. The natives looked on in mute surprise, but were 
told that this was for their own good, to protect them from 

215 



-IG • WAR AT LAST. 

the slave-traders, who had taken possession of and deso* 
lated their country. 

Steps were now taken to get the natives to work, and, 
for awhile, things looked promising; but the warlike 
Baris soon showed signs of insubordination and began to 
be hostile. On the 7th of June, Baker found that the 
Baris of Gondokoro had leagued themselves with the 
natives of Belinian against him. War had come at last,, 
and he gave orders for an attack on a town of Beliniaa 
that night. With twenty of his *' Forty Thieves," and 
fifty Egyptian troops, he started off in the darkness. It 
rained heavily, and the ground was in some places marshy^ 
so that it was nearly five o'clock in the morning when they 
arrived in the neighborhood of the yillages. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Tayib Agha, with three companies of Soudan 
troops, had been left behind to get the gun through a 
heavy swamp, and join them as soon as possible. Just 
before daylight. Baker and his force marched on, but had 
iiot proceeded far when they heard the alarm given, which 
was quickly repeated on every side. No time was now to 
be lost, and, putting the horses at a hard gallop, and the 
infantry on a run, they rushed forward, and, in a couple 
of minutes, emerged into an open space, in which was a 
circular stockade. This was immediately surrounded, and 
the firing commenced — arrows against musketry. It was 
iiw^iw^ard fighting and, as the full daylight revealed the 
door. Baker ordered the bugle to sound " cease firing," and 
prepare to force the entrance. This was a narrow door- 
way, about four feet and a half high, built of large pieces 
of hard wood. Transverse bars of a species of ebony 
blocked it, between which was jammed a mass of hooked 
thorn. It was an ugly obstacle to surmount, but Abd-el- 
Kader and Lieutenant Baker, with the " Forty Thieves," 
rushed against it, protected by the fire of the other troops. 



A NIGHT ATTACK. 217 

"In the meantime/^ says Baker, "the immense drum 
within the stockade was thundering out the summons to 
collect the whole of the neighborhood for war. This signal 
was answered by the heavy booming sound of innumerable 
drums throughout the district, far and near ;' and, as it had 
now become light, I could distinguish the natives col- 
lecting from all parts, and evidently surrounding our 
position ; I therefore posted my men as skirmishers around 
the circle, about eighty yards distant from the stockade^ 
facing outward, while the small party forced the gate- 
Way. 

" The fire of the Snider rifles and the steady shooting of 
the * Forty Thieves' quickly reduced the number of arrows^ 
and the natives, finding it was getting too hot, suddenly- 
made a dash by a secret entrance and rushed through the 
troops, now of necessity widely scattered, and they gained 
the forest. 

"At the same time the gateway was forced, and we 
found a prize within of upward of six hundred cows^ 
The stockade, or zaveeba, was immensely strong, formed 
of massive logs of iron-wood, deeply imbedded in the earth, 
and arranged so closely together that not one bullet out of 
ten would have found its way through the crevices if fired 
from a distance. The proper way to attack the circular 
strongholds is to make a sudden rush close up to the de- 
fense, and to lay the rifle between the openings; the 
stockade then becomes a protection to the attacking party,, 
as there is no flank fire to enfilade them. 

"The natives were now gathering from all sides; but 
we were in possession, and although our party consisted of 
only seventy men, we had an impregnable position, which 
I could hold until joined by Tayib Agha. I accordingly 
took a few of the ^ Forty Thieves ' to a distance of about 
one hundred and fifty paces away from the centre and 



218 FEKOCITY OF CKOCODILES. 

concealed theai as sharpshooters wherever I found a con- 
venient cover. The fire of the Sniders kept the enemy at 
a respectful distance, and I took a few shots myself at long 
range, to teach them the real value of a Snider rifle 

" There were no signs of Tayib Agha. The sun was risen 
and clouds of steam began to rise from the wet ground and 
the dripping trees. I ordered some grass huts to be fired, 
as the volumes of smoke might attract the attention of Tayib 
Agha's detachment, which had evidently gone astray. If 
near, they must have heard the sound of our rifles. 

" The huts were soon in flames, and the smoke rose high 
in air, which would be a signal to be seen from a great 
distance. 

" I sent two buglers to the top of a tall tree, from which 
elevated post they blew the call for the lieutenant-colonel 
and his three companies continually for about half an 
hour." 

The gun having finally come up. Baker marched through 
the district, scattering the natives in every direction. Soon 
after this Baker discovered that the Egyptian commander 
of troops of the khedive was in close intimacy with a native 
chief who was hostile to the whole expedition, while the 
ofiicers fraternized with the slave-traders of the White 
Xile, and had actually purchased slaves. The result was, 
the army began to be disaffected, and talk of returning 
home. Added to this, the camp became sickly. In the 
meantime the crocodiles began to be very ferocious in the 
neighborhood, and in one day took off two soldiers and a 
sailor, while others were bitten, and others still had nar- 
row escapes. Baker shot them at every opportunity. He 
killed an old man-eater over twelve feet long. In his 
stomach was found ^we pounds of pebbles, which he had 
doubtless swallowed while devouring his prey on the shore, 
a matted lump of hair, a necklace and two armlets, such 



OPEN DISAFFECTIOI?'. 219 

as are worn by the negro girls. " The girl had been 
digested/' 

The Baris, in the meantime, kept Baker perpetually 
harassed. Every night they lurked around the cattle- 
yard, often attacking the men ; and, on one occasion, made 
a desperate assault on the camp. 

On the last of July, Baker received news that an oflicer 
and six men, whom he had left under the projection of a 
neighboring sheikh, had been killed by a hostile tribe. 
As the summer wore away it became certain that all 
attempts to raise a crop this year would fail, on account of 
the dicought, and hence it was an anxious question how 
the army was to subsist. But, the first thing to be done 
was to subdue the Bellinians, and Baker projected and 
carried out a regular campaign against them of thirty-five 
days, in which he completely subdued them and drove 
them out of the country. But now disaffection showed 
itself openly in the army. They disliked both the disci- 
pline they were compelled to maintain and the refusal to 
let them hold as slaves those they had captured in war. 

On the 13th of October it came to a head — he received 
a letter from the Egyptian commander and subordinate 
officers of the troops, the substance of which was they had 
determined to abandon the expedition — the chief reason 
given being there was no corn in the country, and the 
Boldiers would starve. 

Baker, disgusted with such conduct, did not condescend 
to make any reply. Instead, he sent the following unex- 
pected order : " Colonel Baouf Bey, with six companies 
of troops, to be under orders at 2 A. M., to await me at 
head-quarters.^^ 

Leaving Mr. Higginbotham in entire charge of the ves- 
sels, he ordered three boats to be in readiness to cross the 

river at two o'clock. With two days' provisions, he de- 
12 



220 TAPPING THE GHANAEIES. 

termined to push straight for the Bera island, to look for 
corn, for the want of which the army wished to return. 

Pushing seven miles up the river, they landed on the 
west bank, and hauling the boats up stream by ropes, 
passed through a country that looked more like a gentle- 
man's park than an African wilderness. Among these, 
countless villages were scattered, out of which the naked 
inhabitants swarmed like bees, brandishing their spears 
and gesticulating wildly. Baker now turned toward them, 
when they retreated inland to the shelter of some large, 
isolated, curious-shajDed granite blocks. Advancing to 
within one hundred and twenty paces, he, through his 
interpreter, told them he had not come to fight, but to buy 
corn, for which he would pay them in cattle. They replied 
in insulting language, saying they were going to take his 
cattle by force, and bade him be off. Still advancing and 
making offers of peace, which were rejected with scorn, 
he at length suddenly changed his tactics, and ordered the 
bugler to sound the assembly, and drew up his troops in 
force. The echoes of the bugle through the wood, and 
the sudden approach of such a force, sent them to the right 
about, and they retreated, blowing their whistles as they 
did so, in defiance. Baker now extended his two companies 
a half mile along, so as to cover the villages in front of 
him, and then advanced, giving strict orders not to enter 
any of the huts, but to tap on their googoos or granaries 
to see if they were full These varied in size, some hold- 
ing forty and others sixty bushels. The inhabitants looked 
on in mute astonishment at this strange proceeding, while 
the line steadily moved on through village after village, 
quietly tapping the granaries till they had gone through 
twenty or thirty villages or more, in each of which were 
at least fifteen granaries, nearly all quite full of corn. As 
far as the eye could reach innumerable villages were seen 



DISCOMFITURE OF EAOUF BEY. 221 

t 

scattered around the open glades, all of them containing 
corn in abundance. 

From the high land near by, he gazed down on a long 
series of rich islands in the river that looked like a Ion 2^ 
" line of granaries.'* He felt as the Israelites did when 
approaching the promised land, and thanked God and 
took courage. "Sailors," he said, "who have been in 
danger of shipwreck on a lee sliore in a heavy gale may 
understand the relief offered by a sudden shift of wind in 
the moment of extremity. Such experience alone can 
allow an appreciation of the mental reaction after a great 
strain of anxiety that I had suffered for some time past." 
He now addressed his " Forty Thieves,'' telling them that 
he knew the country of old, and was well aware that this 
was the true granary of Gondokoro, and that he was glad 
that he could increase their rations of corn. 

Having given the necessary orders for the night to the 
now utterly discomfited Eaouf Bey, he, for the first time 
for twenty-four hours, obtained a little nourishment in the 
shape of porridge. A fire of dry cattle dung having been 
made by his officer, Monsoor, to keep off the musquitoes, 
with a log for his pillow, he lay down and slept. With 
the bugle's morning call, he arose and sent Raouf Bey to 
occupy the islands, while he marched south and estab- 
lished well-posted stations about a mile apart upon high 
ground which commanded a vieiv of the vessels in the 
river — the three forming a triangle. Having made these 
arrangements, he returned to the river, and, taking the 
little dingy, started for Gondokoro, and, in an hour and a 
half, reached it, ten miles distant. The sight of the boat 
all alone, advancing with such rapidity, filled soldiers and 
people with anxiety, and they thronged the shore as it shot 
to the beach. The report filled all but the disaffected 
Egyptian troops with delight. 



222 ATTACKED BY THE NATIVES. 

On tlie 17tli of October, lie started again to hurry on 
the gathering and shipment of the corn. He found 
Raouf Bey negligent and careless — he had, in fact, occu- 
pied but one island, leaving the natives to carry off the 
corn from the others at their leisure. He immediately 
detailed troops to occupy these, and sent Raouf Bey bacl? 
to Gondokoro with orders to dispatch all the invalids to 
Khartoum, but on no account permit any others to go. 

On the 13tli of October, he sent Lieutenant Baker 
farther up tbe river to occupy some rich islands in that 
direction. On the 21st, a boat returned with a letter from 
liim, reporting his success. After twelve days of hard and 
successful work, he received notice that the two stations he 
had establisbed were finished, and so he sent Abdullah, 
commanding one, to take his detachment and march south 
and occupy the villages on the mainland opposite the 
vessels anchored alongside the islands. 

On the 24th of October, having loaded several vessels 
with, corn, Baker was amusing himself shooting ducks, 
when, about half-past four, he heard rapid file-firing in 
the distance. He at once returned to his boat, where he 
found his wife stationed on the high poop deck, watching 
the engagement taking place on the mainland. 

" The troops were about a mile distant, and while steadily 
on the march according to my instructions, they were sud- 
denly attacked by the natives in great force. This was a 
square stand-up fight in the open. The big drums and 
horns were sounding throughout the country, . and the 
natives were pouring from all directions to the battle. 
The white uniforms of the soldiers formed a strong con- 
trast to the black figures of the naked Baris; thus we 
could see the affair distinctly. We could also hear the 
orders given by bugle. 

" Major Abdullah had prudently secured his rear, by 



A SQUARE STAND-UP FIGHT. 223 

tlie occupation of one of the small villages, fortified by a 
hedge of impenetrable euphorbia. He then threw out 
skirmishers in line, supported by the force that held the 
village. The natives were yelling in all directions, and 1 
never before saw them make such a good fight upon the 
open ground. They not only outflanked, but entirely 
surrounded Abdullah's detachment of ninety men. The 
troops were keeping up a heavy fire, which did not apj)ear 
to produce any decided result, as tlie natives thronged to 
the fight and advanced close up to the fire of the soldiers, 
whom they attacked with bows and arrows. I ordered 
our solitary field-piece to be dismounted and placed in the 
large rowing-boat, together with a rocket-trough and the 
requisite ammunition, in readiness to support Abdullah 
with a flank attack upon the natives, by crossing the river 
should it be necessary. As our vessels were in close view, 
I waited for the signal by bugle, should Abdullali require 
assistance. 

"I had only twenty -two men of the ' Forty Thieves ' 
with me, together with the eight artillery-men belonging 
to the gun. The remainder of the ' Forty ' were holding 
the second island, about four miles in our rear. Just 
before dark, I noticed the Baris were giving way ; they 
had evidently?- sufiered some loss, which caused a sudden 
retreat. I heard the bugle sound * the advance,' and we 
could see the troops advancing and firing in pursuit. The 
Baris ceased blowing their horns, and collected in dense 
bodies at a great distance from the troops, who had halted 
and now held the position. 

*^Only occasional shots were now fired, and the sun 
having set, darkness gradually dissolved the view. 

"I fully expected that the Baris would renew the attack 
during the night, but I knew that Abdullah was safe in his 
strong position within a village surrounded by the high 



224 A FLANK MOVEMENT. 

r.iid dense hedge of the euphorbia; the thick, fleshy 
branches of this tree are the best protection against arrows. 
I ordered the boat with the gun to remain in readiness, so 
as to start at a moment's notice, shouki w^e hear firing 
renewed during the night. I should then be able to land 
the gun and take them unexpectedly on the flank with 
case shot. 

" Morning broke without any night alarm. I had filled 
the vessel w^ith the last of the corn upon the island, there- 
fore I determined to cross over w^ith my force and to meet the 
detachment under Major Abdullah. This was not easy to 
accomplish, as there were some awkward sand banks in the 
middle of the river. It was, therefore, necessary to pass 
up stream betAveen two islands, and then, by rounding the 
head of a point, to descend through a channel about one 
hundred yards wide between the western island and the 
mainland. This occupied about an, hour, and Ave droj)ped 
down the channel and took*up an excellent position against 
a high shore that formed a convenient landing-place. 
From this point the land rose rapidly, and the entire land- 
scape was covered with villages abounding in corn. The 
natives appeared to have deserted the country. 

" Having given the necessary order, I took my shot gun, 
and, accompanied by Lieutenant Baker, Monsoor and two 
soldiers of ^ the Forty,' I walked along the river's bank 
toward the village occupied by Major Abdullah's detach- 
ment, who I imagined might have found a large quantity 
of corn, which accounted for the delay in commencing the 
morning's march. 

" There were great numbers of ducks and geese on the 
river's bank; thus as we w^alked toAvard Abdullah's Axil- 
la 2"e, about a mile and a half distant, we made a tolerable 
bag;. We had at length arriA^ed Avithin half a mile of the 
village, Avhich Avas situated upon high ground, about six 



"fe^ 



AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY. 2;25 

hundred yards from the river, when I noticed a number of 
people issuing from the gateway, carrying large baskets 
upon their heads. 

" ' The soldiers have found plenty of corn/ remarked 
Monsoor, ' they are carrying it from the googoos.' 

" My eyes were better than Monsoor's. I at once per- 
ceived that people thus employed were Baris ! 

" We were only fixe guns now, separated from our ves- 
sels by about a mile, and the troops under Major Abdullah 
had evidently evacuated their position ! 

"Where U23on earth had they gone? and for what rea- 
son ? Certainly we had the river on our right flank, but 
we might have been attacked and cut off from our vessels 
had the Baris the pluck to assume the offensive. It was 
time to retreat, but as I wished the Baris to believe we felt 
quite at our ease, we accomplished the move very .easily, 
and strolled quietly homeward, shooting ducks and snipe as 
we w^alked along. 

" The moment I arrived at the vessels, I dispatched a 
party in the steamer's large boat, under Captain Moham- 
med Deii, of the ' Forty Thieves,' to row down the river and 
to recall Abdullah's detachment, that must have retreated for 
some inconceivable reason. The current ran at nearly four 
miles per hour ; thus the boat would be sure to overtake 
them. 

" I was exceedingly annoyed. A force of ninety men 
had evidently been cowed by their engagement with the 
natives on the previous evening, and had retreated upon 
Lieutenant-Colonel Achmet's position, instead of joining 
me according to orders. At the same time my vessels had 
been in sight, only a mile and a half distant. I was thus 
left with a small party of thirty men while ninety men 
had fallen back. 

" This was an example of the utter helplessness of the 



226 A LAME APOLOGY. 

officers and men when left to themselves. If the natives 
had repeated the attack, they would most probably have 
got into dire confusion. 

" Having started the boat I took ten men of 'the Forty* 
and, accompanied by Lieutenant Baker, I marched along 
the bank in order to meet the detachment on its return 
wlien recalled by Mohammed Deii. During the march I 
continued to shoot ducks, as this amusement would deceive 
the nati es respecting the retreat of Major Abdullah, which 
might i len be attributed to some other cause than fear. 

" In about an hour, I distinguished a sail coming round 
the po nt of Gebel (Mount) Eegiaf. The wind was fair, 
and.sb 3 quickly ran up the stream. I now discovered that 
she w^ s towing the boat that I had sent down the river to 
recall Abdullah's detachment. Upon* her near approach I 
liaile* the vessel and ordered her to land the troops (with 
wdiicli she was crowded) upon the west shore. 

" In a short time, Major Abdullah and his gallant com- 
pany had landed and formed in line. His excuse for 
the precipitate retreat which he had commenced at day- 
break was, that he feared a renewed attack and he was 
short of ammunition. He had, therefore, determined to 
fall back on the station occupied by Lieutenant-Colonel 
Achmet. He apjoeared to have forgotten that he could 
have communicated w^ith me by bugle. 

" I inspected the men's pouches and found that most of 
them had eighteen or twenty rounds of cartridge, wdiile the 
minimum contained eleven rounds ; this is what the major 
considered a short supply of ammunition for a march of a 
mile and a half along a beautiful open country to my 
vessels. 

He described the overwhelming number of the natives 
and their extreme bravery in the attack which his troops 
had repelled wdtliout any loss to themselves, either killed 



TAEGET PEACTICE. 227 

or wounded. At the same time, the troops under his cora- 
mc^nd had killed twenty Baris, whose bodies he had him- 
self counted. 

"I now ordered them to advance to the village, as I 
wished to examine the j)osition. Upon arrival at the spot 
where the battle had taken place, there were a number of 
vultures settled in various spots where the ground was 
marked with blood, and the cleanly-picked skeleton of a 
man lying close to the euphorbia hedge, showing that the 
Baris had really come to close quarters." 

The natives had carried off their dead with the excep- 
tion of this one body that had been cleaned by the vul- 
tures. Baker now marched south until he came to six 
villages close together all full of corn. Here he established 
Major Abdullah to collect corn — making this his central 
station. On the 3d, he sent vessels loaded with corn to 
Gondokoro. The next day, he dispatched fifteen of his 
" Forty Thieves " to the south, to villages that had not yel 
been disturbed. In the meantime, he had made a nice 
little camp on the bank, erected huts and granaries, which 
were soon filled with corn, awaiting transportation to Gon- 
dokoro. While busily engaged in suj^erin tending all tliese 
arrangements, he suddenly heard steady firing in the direc- 
tion taken by the small party of " the Forty." 

Ordering his horse, and taking with him three of the 
'* Forty Thieves" and Monsoor, he started off on a trot in the 
direction of the firing. After riding about a mile and a 
half, he came sudd'^nly upon a village, on two of the tallest 
huts of which two of the "Forty Thieves " were standing as 
sentries, while the rest were taking long shots at negroes 
who had attacked them. It was regular target practice at 
long range. Baker says : 

" My arrival on the summit, on a white horse, attended 
only by Monsoor and three soldiers, was a signal for a great 



228 ADVANCE IN OPEN ORDER. 

blowing of horns and beating of drums. Immense num- 
bers of natives were to be seen in all parts of the view be- 
fore us. They ran eagerly from their villages, and col- 
lected from every quarter, evidently bent upon a fight with 
my little party. 

" I ordered my men to cease firing, as they were wasting 
their ammunition uselessly and destroying the prestige of 
the rifles by missing at long ranges. 

" I ordered a general advance in open order, about four 
yards apart; thus twenty men covered a line of about 
seventy-six paces. 

" This front, with the men in scarlet uniform, made a 
tolerable show. I rode at the head on a very beautiful 
Arab * Greedy Grey,' that was the most perfect of all the 
horses I had brought from Egypt; excelling in breed, 
speed, beauty and temper. He was very powerful; and 
would stand the fire of heavy guns without flinching. 

'' My little comj)any moved forward in quick time. This 
was the signal for a chorus of yells upon all sides ; the big 
drums sounded louder than before, and the horns of the 
Baris bellowed in every direction. 

" Great numbers of natives now advanced with their 
bows and arrows, gesticulating and leaping from side to side 
in their usual manner, so as to prevent the possibility of a 
steady aim. 

" As yet they were about six hundred yards distant, and 
I continued the march forward as though no enemy were 
present. As \\e descended a ravine and marched up the 
opposite incline, I found that the natives retired over the 
next undulation. Their line of front extended about a 
mile and a quarter, while we occupied, at the most, eighty 
paces. 

" Having marched about a mile without firing a shot, 
and finding that the natives invariably fell bacL as we ad' 



THE TACTICS OF THE ENEMY. 231 

« 

vancecl, at the same time that they kept the same interval 
between us, I at once understood their tactics. It was now 
five o'clock ; the sun would set wathin an hour, and their 
intention was to draw us forward until darkness would re- 
duce the power of the rifles. They would then be able to 
surround us, and very possibly overpower cur small force 
durino; our retreat to the vessels in the dark. 

" I halted my men and explained to them the Baris's 
dodge. I now ordered the retreat after this manner. We 
should hurry down hill and up the next undulation, j^o as 
to deceive the enemy with the idea of a precipitate retreat. 
This would induce an advance on their side. The Baris 
would be certain to follow us at full speed if they supposed 
we were afraid of them. It was my intention to cross 
rapidly the first undulation, where my men would for a few 
minutes be out of view of the enemy, and there to conceal 
them in a deserted village which I had noticed during our 
advance. This would be an ambush that would take the 
Baris by surprise, as they would imagine we had j^assed 
ahead, they would, therefore, come near the village. 

"The order to the ^ right about' was given, and my 
men, w^ho took a keen interest in the plan, commenced so 
precipitate a march down hill, that my horse was forced to 
a jog-trot. I heard the savage yells of the enemy, who, as 
I had expected, now followed us with the hope of cutting 
off our retreat to the vessels. 

'^ We crossed the dry, rocky bed of the torrent in the 
bottom, and ascended the hill-face rapidly. Looking back, 
I saw the natives running at full speed in pursuit. They 
began to descend the hill just as we had crossed the sum- 
mit of the high ground ; thus they lost sight of us as we 
'quickly concealed ourselves behind the huts and granaries 
of a deserted village. I hid my horse behind a hut, and 
the men, having surrounded the positions, crouched low on 



^""^ SHOT AT THE RED SHEIKH. 



•~j^ 



tlie ground behind the most convenient cover. Unfor- 
tunately, the natives, who were on the high ground on our 
right flank as we faced about, perceived the snare, and 
endeavored to give the alarm by blowing upon their 
whistles of antelope horn. This was either misunderstood 
or unheeded by the enemy in our rear, who quickly made 
their appearance. 

*' I had ordered my men to reserve their fire, and not to 
expend any ammunition until the command should be 
given. My good Monsoor was to reload for me, and I 
borrowed a Snider rifle from- a soldier. I rested the 
* Dutchman ' against the googoo or wicker granary, behind 
which I was concealed. 

" The natives on our right flank now pressed forward, 
which would bring them in our rear; at the same time 
those in our front appeared in very loose and open order, 
evidently looking for us in all directions. 

" I observed a man 2:>ainted red, like a stick of sealing- 
wax, with large ivory bracelets upon his arms. This fel- 
low was in advance, and he ascended a small ant-hill to 
obtain a better view. Monsoor whispered : * That's the 
jdieikh.' At the same time I had taken a rest with the rifle 
as I knelt down by the googoo-stand A puff of smoke, 
and the sharp crack of the rifle startled the enemy, as the 
red shiekli rolled over. The yells increased on all sides, 
the whistles of the anteloiDe-horns now sounded a shrill 
alarm, during which the red shiekli recovered his legs and 
vainly attempted a dance of defiance. The leading Baris 
shot off their arrows, but they fell short. In the mean- 
time my men had remained motionless. Concealment was 
now useless ; I therefore threw off the cover of a googoo, 
into which excellent position I had climbed, while Monsoor 
ptood upon the frame-work to hand me a spare rifle. 

" The circular googoo raised three feet from the ground 



CHARGE OF THE "FORTY THIEVES." 233 

afforded a splendid lookout. In this I could turn and 
fire in every direction, like a pivot gun on a Martello 
tower. 

" The red sheikh was now about two hundred yards dis- 
tant and was gesticulating to his people, who Were evidently 
shy of closing with our position. A shot from the googoo 
struck him through the body, and he staggered and fell, 
never to rise again. 

"A few natives immediately made a rush forward to recover 
him. One immediately fell at a shot from the googoo, but 
recovering himself like a cat, he staggered down the hill. 
Another quick shot cracked upon the body of a native, 
who was caught in the arms of his comrades and dragged 
away as they precipitately retreated in all directions from 
the dangerous locality. 

" My men now begged me to allow them to charge and 
capture the man who was endeavoring to escape. I gave 
them leave, and a party of fifteen dashed out in pursuit, 
with loud yells, after the retreating natives. For about a 
minute, the natives faced them and shot their arrows, but 
the gallant fifteen coolly knelt upon the clear ground, and, 
taking steady rest upon their knees, opened a fire that 
wounded one man, who was immediately supjDorted by his 
fellows, and drove the enemy before them. The fifteen 
immediately charged forward and bayoneted a fugitive, 
and returned with his bow and arrows in triumph. 

" The enemy had quickly had the worst of it. They 
were now standing in all directions at distances varying 
from four hundred to one thousand paces. Many of them 
were actually in our rear, but I noticed that these fellows 
were already opening to the right and left, as though they 
faltered in their determination to resist our retreat to the 
vessels. I determined to follow up the first advantage. I 
therefore ordered my men to hand me their rifles as quickly 



234 A GENERAL SKEDADDLE. 

as I required tliem, and I opened fire in all directions from 
my elevated position. 

" The Baris would not stand in the open ground before 
thjB S aiders. 

" Having set the sights for four hundred yards, I took 
them first and continued until the country was completely 
cleared of an enemy up to one thousand paces. 

" The ground was dry and dusty, thus each bullet marked 
its hit as the puff of dust rose from the earth like a jet of 
smoke. 

" Some of the enemy were knocked over at very long 
ranges ; others were so scared by the close practice, as the 
bullets either struck the ground at their feet or pinged 
close to their ears, that they cleared off as quickly as j)OS- 
sible. Their noisy drums had ceased, and suddenly I 
perceived a general skedaddle, as those upon our right 
flank started off at full speed, shouting and yelling to 
alarm the rest. I now distinguished a body of troops hur- 
rying at the double-quick down the hillside in tbe distance. 
Tliese were commanded by an active Soudani officer (lieu- 
tenant), who had been in Mexico under Marshal Bazaine. 
He had heard thf;'. firing as he was returning with his day's 
collection of corn to the vessels ; he had, therefore, dro23j)ed 
the corn and hurried on with his party to our suj^port. I 
ordered the bugks to sound the retreat, and, having joined 
forces, we marched without further 023j)Osition. 

" We reached the diahbeeah and my little camp about 
half an hour after dark." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

VBSSELS LEAVE FOR KHARTOUM WITH THE INVALIDS— ABDULLAH'S VILLAINY— EXPLORIlfG THl? 
WHITE NILE— MEETING A FRIENDLY TRIBE— INTERVIEW WITH THE SHEIKH— SORCERY ANL' 
TALISMANS— MAGIC— AN ELEPHANT HUNT— ITS MORAL EFFECTS— SCRAMBLE FOR THE FLESH— 
THE TRIBES SEEK PEACE— ELEPHANTS ENTER THE FORT— A WILD SCENE— ELEPHANTS GATHER- 
ING FRUIT— AN ADVENTURE WITH A HIPPOPOTAMUS— THE COUNTRY AT PEACE— BAKER RE- 
SOLVES TO START SOUTH. 

AFTER the departure of Major Abdullah, the natives 
attacked the other station near him, commanded by 
Colonel Achmet, and had wounded him in the back with 
a barbed arrow, which had to be cut out. Another passed 
through the heart of his servant, killing him on the spot, 
while several soldiers had been wounded. On the 3d of 
November, thirty vessels had left Gondokoro for Khar- 
toum, taking about one thousand one hundred people, 
including women, sailors and invalids. This was contrary 
to Baker's express orders, and was done on purpose by 
E.aouf Bey, to weaken the force and cripple him so that 
.he could not carry out the object of his expedition. By 
this means he was reduced to five hundred and two officers 
and men, which should have numbered one thousand six 
hundred and forty-five. This was really the work of the 
ruffianly slave-trader, Abou Saood, who had now apparently 
gained his point, and the expedition was paralyzed. Baker 
had written for reinforcements, but he did not know when 
they would arrive, while there remained but one year and 
four months of the time allowed him to accomplish his 
work. But he determined, reduced as he was, not to relax 
his efforts to secure the great end of the expedition. He 

235 



2o6 FRIENDLY NATIVES. 

Lad conquered the Baris and Gondokoro was well fortified, 
eo that he had nothing to fear from that quarter. 

On the 10th of November he took one hundred and Mtj 
men to reconnoitre the country, at the last cataracts of the 
White Nile, some six miles distant. As he marched along 
the high ground, nothing could exceed the beauty of the 
country as an agricultural settlement. The long, sloping 
undulations were ornamented with innumerable yilla^^es, 
in all of which were overflowing granaries. Ascending a 
slope, to his astonishment he saw a large number of natives 
who appeared friendly. Leaving his rifle with Monsoor, 
he rode up within fifty yards of them. His interpreter 
explained that he was only on an» exploration, and had no 
intention of taking their property, but wished to see- 
their sheikh. They said they were governed by a great 
shiekh named Bedden, whose territory was bounded by tha 
torrent-bed that he had just crossed. They promised that 
he should pay Baker a visit on the morrow ; in the mean- 
time, if he required any corn, they would supply him. This 
was a politeness to which he was quite unaccustomed. He 
therefore thanked them, but declined their offer, saying that 
he wanted nothing from them except friendship. He now 
discovered that these people had never had any connection 
with the slave-traders, who were afraid to molest- bo power- 
ful a tribe. At parting, he gave them a white handker- 
chief, as a signal to his sentries, when they should arrive. 

" We then," he says, " returned to our station, the troops 
sharing the satisfaction that I felt, in having at length dis- 
covered friends. 

*^ On the following day, at about 3 P. M., the sentry on 
the hill called to the guard that a very large body of natives 
were approaching the station. I j^resumed that these were 
the followers of Bedden, I therefore ascended the slope 
and examined them with a telescope. My suspicions were 



THE bheikh's visit. 237 

aroused from the extraordinary number of people — at least 
seven hundred natives were accompanying their sheikh. I 
returned to camp and made preparations to receive his 
visit with a guard of honor. I drew up a hundred men 
parallel with the river, about fifty yards from the bank, 
near the bow of my diahbeeah. Fifty men were in line at 
right angles with the river — thus the lines' formed two 
sides of a square. In the front I placed the field- piece, 
loaded with canister-shot. I intended to receive Bedden 
with due honor in the hollow square, thus protected. In 
the event of treachery, his force could be almost annihi- 
lated by one discharge. 

" The hill sentry now reported the arrival of a messen- 
ger, who waved a white handkerchief on the end of a bam- 
boo. This was the signal agreed upon, and the messenger 
was allowed to pass. He communicated the fact of Bedden's 
approach ; in a few minutes later the great sheikh arrived. 
He was very tall and gaunt ; and, without any delay, he 
and his people were ushered into the hollow square, where 
they all stuck their lances in the ground and sat down. 

" I now sent for Bedden and a few of his principal men 
to the poop deck of my diahbeeah, which being covered 
with carpets, and arranged witl^ sofas and chairs, w.^s 
something very astonishing to the great sheikh, who had 
never seen anything but a vessel in the distance. 

" I now explained the objects of the expedition ; at the 
same time I presented him with a long Egyptian blue shirt 
that reached to his ankles and made him look more re- 
spectable. A crimson sash round his waist, and a red tar- 
boosh (fez) upon his head, improved his appearance won- 
derfully and he began to feel at home. 

" I presented him with six pomids of beads of various 
colors, together with some strings of harness bells. A braas 
bugle and a large mirror attracted more attention than any 
13 



238 THE WONDERFUL PARROT. ^ 

other curiosities. I gave him a brass bugle, to his great 
delight. 

" The use of the cannon was then explained to him, and 
the effects of the shell were pardonably exaggerated to pro- 
dace a respect for the weapon. 

" He gave us six pots of merissa and some fowls, prom- 
ising to come again to-morrow. 

" All these people believe in sorcery, and each sheikh 
possesses spells and conjurors. Tortoise shells, scales of the 
manis, lion's claws and those of the leopard, roots, knots of 
trees of peculiar shape, and many other things, are worn 
as talismans. My wife's parrot was supposed to be a cajoor 
or fetish. This was the gray bird of West Africa, that was 
unknown in these parts. The interpreter explained that 
* it could speak like a human being, and that it flew about 
the country and listened to what people said — all of which 
it reported to its mistress and myself; thus we knew every- 
thing that occurred, and the natives could not deceive us.' 
This parrot was exceedingly tame and was never confined. 
It was now walking about the deck, and while its extraor- 
dinary powers were being described by my Bari inter- 
preter, Morgian, to the amazement and fear of the natives, 
it advanced stoutly to the sheikh Bedden, and would have 
bitten his big toe had he not quickly jumped up and taken 
leave. The magnetic battery and large musical box were 
also believed to be magic. 

"At sunset, the great sheikh departed in the best of 
spirits, with all his jDCople, as he had drunk a tumbler of 
marsala before he started, in order to try the quality of our 
merissa. 

" The population of this country is very large, and the 
people are good agriculturists. Although the soil is stony, 
it is very productive, as the cultivation is carefully attended 
to. Dhurra, sesame, dochan and beans, in addition to a 



A HEED OF ELEPHANTS. 230 

species of Hibiscus, which produces an edible seed and als<3 
a fine fibre, are sowii in exact oblongs or squares, resem- 
bling the plots in allotment-grounds in England. ISTear the 
villages are large heaj)s of manure, collected from the cattle 
*zarubas.' These are mixed with the sweepings of the 
stations, and the ashes from the cattle-fires, and are divided, 
when required, among the proprietors of the herds.'' 

ELEPHANT HUNT. 

While here, Baker examined carefully the geological 
formation of the country, and frequently worked for gold 
in the most likely spots in the deep ravines, but he found 
no signs of gold or other j^recious metals. 

" On 13th November, at sunrise, Lieutenant Saker 
started with the troops to convey corn from a distant 
village. I was sitting on the poop deck of the diahbeeah, 
enjoying a pipe and a cup of coffee, when he suddenly 
galloped back with the news that a herd of bull elephants 
was approaching from the west. I was not prepared for 
elephant-shooting, and I recommended him to return to 
the troops, who would otherwise waste their time. I had 
no susj)icion that elephants would approach our position 
after having been disturbed by the soldiers, in a country 
that w^as perfectly open. 

" Lieutenant Baker cantered back to his men, while I 
commenced to write up my journal according to my daily 
custom. 

" In about a quarter of an hour, the sentry reported a 
herd of elephants. All my people clambered up upon the 
googoos and huts to obtain a good view of the herd, which, 
from the high poop deck of the diahbeeah, we could see 
distinctly. 

" There were eleven bulls, and they were marching inf 



240 MAKING PREPARATIONS. 

close order along the bank of the river, approaching us ai 
about four hundred yards distance. 

^* I should have thought it almost as likely to meet a 
herd of elephants in Hyde Park, as to find them in this 
open and thickly-populated country. I now distinguished 
natives along the distant heights, all of whom were at- 
tracted by the uncommon occurrence. In the meantime 
the Repliants approached, swinging their trunks and huge 
ears to and fro, apparently' unconscious of the presence of 
the vessels and people. 

" I always kept my guns and ammunition in beautiful 
order, arranged on a rack in the cabin. On the left hand 
side were the shot guns, i. e., two breech -loading No. 12 ; 
four muzzle-loading No. 10. On the right the rifles ; the 
little ^ Dutchman,' two breech-loading Reilly No. 8, two 
muzzle-loading Holland half-pounders that carried an iron 
lead-coated explosive shell, containing a bursting charge of 
half an ounce of fine grain j)owder. These two elephant 
rifles were very hard hitters, and carried twelve drachms 
of powder. The ammunition for the rifles was on a shelf 
that forme'd the rack, contained in a small bag with a sim- 
ple reload, and a large bag with a considerable supply. 
Th§ small bag was intended for the deck should I call 
suddenly for a rifle. 

"Seeing that the elephants were so near, I at once 
ordered my horse, 'Greedy Gray,' to be saddled and the 
rifles and ammunition to be sent after me. My servant, 
Suleiman, who had started with me from Alexandria, was 
an honest, good creature, but so exceedingly nervous that 
he was physically useless in any sudden emergency. The 
climate of the mashes during our long voyage had so 
affected his nervous system, that any alarm or start would 
set him trembling to such an extent that his teeth chat- 
tered as though he had been bathing in iced water. How- 



ELEPHANTS SUREOUNDED. . 243 

ever, there was no time to lose, as I expected that should 
the elephants observe our vessels and the troops in their 
scarlet uniforms, they would immediately wheel round and 
be off at the pace which an African elephant knows so well 
how to use. 

" I quickly mounted * Greedy Gray ' and told Suleiman 
to send on my rifles directly with ammunition. I ordered 
my men to run up the heights and to come down at about two 
hundred paces in the rear of the elephants, where they 
Wi<;re to form a line as though in skirmishing order. This^ 
line of red shirts would most probably check the elephants 
from rushing back. My men had orders to fire at the 
eh^phants, and to endeavor to turn them should they attempt 
to retreat. 

" I was now on * Greedy Gray ;' the sloping ground was 
as clean as a race course, I therefore galloped up the slope 
so as to keep above the elephants. The horse flew along 
at full speed. At this moment, a chorus of shouts from 
great numbers of natives who had collected on the east 
bank of the river, was raised in admiration of the white 
horse which they probably thought would, in some manner, 
seize the elephants. 

" In a very few seconds, I reined up the slope about a 
hundred yards above the herd, which had now halted close 
to the river's bank. They regarded the horse with some 
curiosity and massed themselves togethsr. 

" In the meantime my ^ Forty,' who were capital runners,, 
were moving rapidly along the heights, and they presently 
came down and formed in a long open line from the edge 
of the river up the slope. During this operation the ele- 
phants only moved their ears and trunks, but remained in 
the same position. They were now completely surrounded ; 
the diahbeeah and my people were in their front, I was 
above them on one fl.ank, and the servants were coming up 



244 . TAKING TO WATER. 

with the rifles. In their rear was a line of about twenty 
soldiers, and on the other flank was the deep river, about 
one hundred and ten yards wide from the mainland to the 
island. 

^' Just as the rifles were in a few yards of me, and I was 
preparing- to dismount, the elephants wheeled suddenly 
round and took to water. They had been standing in a 
low, swamjiy spot, that was frequently overflowed; thus 
they had no difliculty in descending to the river. Close to 
this place the bank was perpendicular and as hard as brick. 

^' I ran down to the river, but, by the time of my arrival, 
the elephants had gained the opposite bank ; there, how- 
ever, they were in difliculty. The water was deep, and the 
shore of the island was perpendicular and about six feet 
above the water. They could not get out without break- 
ing down the bank so as to form an incline. Already 
these enormous creatures, which are accustomed to such 
difiiculties, w^ere tearing down the earth with their tusks 
and horny-toed feet ; still it ivas a work of time, that gave 
me a good opportunity. 

" It w^as difficult to obtain a shot, as the elephants were 
<end on. The distance w^as about one hundred and ten 
yards, which is very uncertain for so large an animal, that 
must be struck exactly in the right place. I fired several 
shots with the No. 8 breech-loader, aimed at the back of 
their heads, but none of these were successful. 

"Monsoor had the ammunition and reloaded for me. 
The stunning effect of the heavy metal confused the ani- 
mals and caused one to fall backwards into the scrambling 
herd. This turned an elephant sideways. The bank had 
already given way and fallen in large masses into the river 
which reduced its depth. The elephants, which had now 
gained a muddy footing, j)loughed and tore down the yield- 
ing earth with redoubled vigor, as my men in great excite- 



AMMUNITION EXHAUSTED. 243 

■ment opened a hot fire upon them with Snider rifles. 
These had about as much effect as though they had been 
peUed with stones. 

" Presently, as the depth was lessened by the falling 
bank, the elephants showed more body above the surface. 
The splashing and scrambling was extraordinary; at 
length a large bull half ascended the bank, and for a 
moment exposed his flank ; I fired a quick right and left 
shot with a Eeilly 'No. 8, behind his shoulder, and he fell 
backward into the riv^er, where he commenced a series of 
wild struggles that brought him within twenty yards of 
me, and I seut a ball into his head which killed him. 
The powerful stream at once carried aAvay the floating 
carcass. 

" The bank had now completely given way, and an 
elephant was nearly on the summit. I fired at him w^ith 
one of the Holland half-pounders, which, by the recoil, 
flew out of my hands for the distance of several yards ; 
this was loaded wdth twelve drachms of fine-grain powder. 
The elephant fell on his knees on the steep incline, and 
was bogged to all intents and purposes ; but believing that 
I had plenty of ammunition on hand, I fired another half- 
pounder into his shoulder, which killed him on the spot, 
and he rolled into the w^ater, and the current took him 
away. I immediately sent a man to order boats, with 
ropes and axes, to follow the carcasses. 

" In the meantime, I fired my last No. 8 into the shoulder 
of an elephant that had just climbed the bank and gained 
the island. I now had a glorious opportunity of a shoulder- 
shot at every animal as it should ascend the steep incline. 

" My ammunition was exhausted ! My servant Sulei- 
man had sent the little bag that contained only one reload 
for the breech-loaders, and no powder-flask or shells for 
the half-pounders. I had now the annoyance of witnessing 



246 SHELLING ELEPHANTS. 

the difficult ascent of the eleiDhants in single file, exposing 
their flanks in succession to the shoulder-shot, while I 
remained a helpless looker-on. 

"I had thus bagged only two out of eleven, but these 
were killed at very long shots (about a hundred and ten 
yards). The half-pounder rifles were the same calibre and 
pattern as that described in ' The Nile Tributaries of Abys- 
sinia' as 'the Baby.' These were made by Mr. Holland, 
of Bond Street, and are the most overpowering rifles I ever 
used. They were certain to kill the elephant, and half- 
kill the man who fired them with twelve drachms of fine- 
grain powder. I was tolerably strong, therefore I was 
never killed outright ; but an Arab hunter had his collar- 
bone smashed by the recoil when the weapon was loaded 
with simple coarse-grain powder. If he had used fine- 
grain, I should hardly have insured his life. 

''The elephants having gained the island, remained 
some time exposed before they made up their minds to 
cross to the other side. Unfortunately, the boats had 
followed the carcasses of the elej)hants down the river, 
which were two miles distant before they could be secured ; 
therefore, we had no means of reaching the island. Our 
vessels could not have crossed, as there were many rocks 
below stream. I therefore took a few shots with Hale's 
rockets, one of which just grazed the rump of an elephant, 
and sent them off in great astonishment. We then tried a 
few shots with the field-piece, but the gun made bad prac- 
tice, and the shells exploded very wildly, and not accord- 
ing to the distances regulated by the fuses. 

'' The specific gravity of the elephant differs consider- 
bly from that of the hippopotamus. The latter animal 
invariably sinks when killed, and the body rises to the 
surface in about two hours, when the gas has distended the 
stomach. The body of an elephant floats on the surface 



MORAL EFFECTS OF THE HUNT. ' 247 

immediately that it is killed, and is capable of supporting 
one or more persons. The cavity of the carcass is much 
larger in the elephant than in the hippopotamus — the 
latter is a dense mass of flesh, covered by an exceedingly 
thick and heavy skin, the specific gravity of which is con- 
siderably greater than water." 

The moral effects of this elephant hunt were wonderful. 
The sound of the cannon had brought in the natives from 
far and near, and they gazed with astonishment on the 
carcasses of the two dead elephants. Their hostility was 
at once changed into friendship, and on the following 
morning Baker held a levee on board his boat, at which 
twenty chiefs came to him for peace. He gave them 
presents, and they said the taking of their corn was of no 
account. 

In their conversation they told him that elephants 
were seldom seen in that region, and that they did not 
understand killing them, and concluded by asking for 
some of their meat. Permission being given, they went off 
in the direction where the carcasses lay, and soon there 
was a general scramble for the precious morsels. This 
seemed strange, as they had cattle enough. But Baker 
said " the African negroes are an incomprehensible people, 
and they cannot be judged by the ordinary rules of human 
nature." 

Each division of the district in succession followed each 
other's example in desiring peace, and on the 19th of No- 
vember he returned to Gondokoro, highly satisfied with the 
results of the campaign, and he now began to prepare, 
feeble as his force was, to push into the interior toward the 
equator. In *the meantime the elephants became quite 
thick around Gondokoro, and one night two immense bull 
elephants walked coolly past the sentries into the very 
centre of the fort, and a scene of the wildest confusion 



248 ^ AN elephant's steength. 

followed. The garrison was aroused, and for a time it was 
a random discharge of firearms on the one side, and a wild, 
frantic charge of elephants on the other. They finally 
escaped by the way they came in. But Baker had no time 
to hunt, as he was busy in preparing for his march south- 
ward. It seems the elephants, at this time of the year, are 
attracted toward the place by the ripe lalobes. The trees, 
if of medium size, are frequently torn down for the sake 
of this small production, that would appear too insignificant 
for the notice of so huge an animal. 

"I once," he says, "had an opportunity of witnessing an 
exhibition of an elephant's strength exerted in his search for 
this small fruit. I was in the Shir country, and, one evening, 
accompanied by Lieutenant Baker, I strolled into the 
forest, about half a mile from our vessels, to watch for 
water-buck {Redunca EUipsiprymna) in a small glade, 
where I had shot one the previous evening. 

" We had not long been concealed when I heard a pecu- 
liar noise in the thick forest, which denoted the approach 
of elephants. We at once retreated to some rising ground 
about one hundred and fifty paces distant, as our small 
rifles would have been useless against such heavy game. 
In a short time, several elephants appeared from diflerent 
portions of the covert, and one of extraordinary size moved 
slowly toward us, until he halted beneath a tall, spreading 
beglik. This tree must have been nearly three feet in 
diameter, and was about thirty feet high from the ground 
to the firfet branch ; it was, therefore, impossible for the 
elephant to gather the coveted fruit. ' To root up such a 
tree would have been out of the question. The elephant 
paused for a short time as though- considering ; he then 
butted his forehead suddenly against the trunk. I could 
not have believed the eflect: this large tree, which was 
equal in appearance to the average size of park-limber^ 



ADVENTWRE WITH A HIPPOPOTAMUS. 251 

quivered in every branch to such a degree, that had a per- 
son taken refuge from an elephant, and thought himself 
secure in the top, he'would have found it difficult to hold 
on. 

" When the lalobes fall, they must be picked up indi- 
vidually, and though the trouble appears disproportioned 
to the value of the fruit, there is no fruit so much coveted 
by elephants. 

" Near this spot, on the following day, I had a close ad- 
venture with a hippopotamus. I had gone to the same- 
place where I had seen the elephants, and as I was return- 
ing through the forest within a few rods of the river 
margin, when, upon suddenly turning round a dense thorn 
bush, I came within four or five paces of a large bull hip- 
popotamus. This animal had left the river for an evening 
ramble on the shore, and was munching some succulent 
grass with such gusto that he had not heard my approach. 
Unfortunately, I had come upon him exactly at right 
angles, which restricted my shot to the tem23le,. This i» 
the most difficult of penetration in the hippopotamus. I 
only had the * Dutchman,' and my attendant, Moonsoor, 
carried a Snider rifle ; thus we were badly armed for so 
impenetrable a beast. I fired just in front of his ear, cer- 
tainly within fifteen feet. The only effect produced was a 
shake of his head, and he appeared rather stupid, as 
though stunned. The left hand barrel followed quickly 
upon the right; Monsoor fired with his Snider. The 
' Dutchman ' being a breech-loader, was ready again, and 
w^e fired into this stupid-looking brute as though he had 
been a target, and with about the same effect. 

" Suddenly, as though we had just awakened him, he 
turned round and bolted into a dense mass of thorns about 
tliirty paces from us. 

" In the meantime, the troops at the vessels, that w^ere 



252 THE "forty thieves" to the rescue. 

■within three hundred paces, having heard the rapid and 
continued firing supposed I had been attacked by the 
natives. The * Forty Thieves ' rushed to the rescue. I 
heard the bugle, and presently the voices of the men, as 
they approached, running at full speed. The hippopotamus 
had moved from his thorny retreat, and was moving slowly 
forward, when he was stumbled against by ^ the Forty,' 
some of whom literally ran against him. The animal ap- 
])eared quite stunned and stupid, and he merely stood and 
stared at his new assailants. The sight was perfectly 
lidiculous. Every rifle was fired into him, but the hollow 
bullets of the Sniders had no penetration, and w^e might as 
well have pejDpered the stone bulls of Nineveh in the 
!l>ritisli Museum. At length, having been the centre of a 
blaze of fire- work, as every man did his best to kill him, 
(luring a space of about a minute, he coolly approached the 
(fdge of the cliff, which was quite perpendicular and about 
eighteen feet high. A tremendous splash was the end of 
the encounter, as the hippo commitlei himself to the deep, 
Trith a clumsy jump from the midst of the disappointed 
soldiers." 

Everything Vfas now in order in Gondokoro — ^peace 
.leigned throughout the district, food was abundant and the 
station strongly fortified, and Baker w^as ready to start 
{.'louth. He determined to carry a steamer in sections to 
north latitude 3° 32', and there put it together and launch 
it on the Albert Nyanza. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

THE DETERMINATION TO ADVANCE— A DESPERATE POSITION— SOLDIERS DRAW THE CARTS TO 
LABOEE— A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY — THE FUTURE CAPITAL OP AFRICA— REACHES FATIKO— 
POWER OF MUSIC OYER THE NATIVES— GROTESQUE DANCING OF NAKED WOMEN—STARTS tXJl* 
UN YORO— BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY DEPOPULATED— PROCLAIMS PEACE— LIVINGSTONE. 

MR. BAKER, in this determination to proceed at all 
hazards and finish the work assigned him, showed 
his true Saxon pluck ; while his wife, notwithstanding all 
she had endured and suffered, and the still greater trials 
awaiting her, persisting in accompanying him to the end, 
whatever that end should be, exhibited a spirit, if i")ossib]e, 
still braver and more worthy of admiration. Selecting 
carefully those to compose his force on whom he could 
rely in the last extremity, he prepared to set out on his 
hazardous enterprise. Major Abdullah, who had served In 
Mexico under Marshal Bazaine in that unhappy invasion 
of Maximilian, formed with six boys the domestic corjs. 
Sending off a hundred and fifty men to drive several thou- 
sand cattle and sheep to a well-know^n rocky ravine some 
six miles in advance, he started at eight o'clock in the 
morning of the 22d of January, 1871, to complete his 
annexation of this vast tropical region to Egyj^t, and open 
commerce with it through the Nile to Europe. These 
same two hundred men set out inUiigh spirits, and on the 
27tli arrived with, the vessels at tire foot of the cataracts, 
4° 38' north latitude. His old friend Bedden, a native 
chief wdiom he had known in his former exjDlorations in 
Africa, met Baker here, but seemed to treat him coldly ; 

2o3 



254 ATTEMPT TO STAMPEDE. 

and wlien the latter said lie wanted to hire two hundred 
carriers, left him in such a suspicious manner that he was 
sure he should never see him again. He was right ; and 
hence felt that his position was becoming desperate. 
Without carriers he was helj)less. With cattle and sheep 
together he had over four thousand head, which he saw 
was a great temptation to these unprincipled savages ; and 
the first thought when night came on was to secure them. 
He knew they would think it a far better speculation to 
get his cattle than to carry his baggage. He was not mis- 
taken ; that night a stampede was attempted, but, thanks 
to his precaution, failed. In order to clear the neighbor- 
hood of the thieves, he set off a number of rockets, which 
soon sent them scampering in every direction. 

He now was compelled to change his plans ; and, as the 
steamer could go no fartner with his load, he determined 
to push on to Lahore, sixty miles distant, if the soldiers 
would draw the carts. There he knew he could obtain 
carriers and continue his march, and fulfill his mission to 
establish the khedive's authority in that region and sup- 
press the slave trade. 

After some objections and complaints by the soldiers, 
they agreed to take the j)laces of the carriers and move on. 
Before the carts were all loaded and they were ready to 
start, an old man seventy or eighty years of age, paid him 
a visit, and Baker, from the numerous spells hung about 
his person, concluded he was a " rain-maker." His face 
was smeared with wood ashes to give him as demoniacal 
an appearance as j^ossible. Baker gave him a glass of 
Marsala wine and a blue shirt, as he wished to make friends 
with him, because the. natives hold these rain-makers in 
respect. He kept giving the old toj^er wine till his heart 
was enlarged and he was ready to converse. He said that 
knew the country well and would act as guide to Lahore 



A KAIN-MAKER. 255 

for the small consideration of a cow, saying that if he was 
with him, the natives on the way would treat him with 
civility. Baker asked him if he could keep the rain away 
during the journey. He immediately blew his rain whistle, 
which he carried suspended to his neck, and looked as 
much as to say what do you think of that ?. Baker sent 
for a German horn, which was a polished cow's horn with 
a brass mouth-piece, and presented it to him. The wine 
had made the old conjurer mellow, and he was profuse in 
his gratitude, and kept blowing the horn and grinned till 
the tears ran down his cheeks. He then suspended it 
round his neck and said proudly, "I am ix)W a great 
sheikh ; there is no rain-maker so great as I ; you will 
travel with me and this horn shall keep you dry. Don't 
trouble yourself about the Baris, they won't molest you, but 
travel as soon as you can." 

A valuable ally had been gained. At 3 P. M., February 
8th, they set out, old Lokko, the rain-maker, showing the 
way and waving a couple of thin-peeled sticks at a black 
cloud in the sky and blowing his horn frantically. The 
black cloud soon melted in the clear air. He had 
evidently conquered, and so gave his face an extra coat of 
wood ashes to make himself still more hideous. 

Baker's wife rode " Greedy Gray " with as much baggage 
as could be hung on the saddle, while he himself rode a 
powerful chestnut. Lieutenant Baker rode a light chest- 
nut and Colonel Abd-el-Kader an Arab steed, while ten 
donkevs carried ammunition, flour, etc. Mr. Baker, with 
his wife and the lieutenant, headed the procession, followed 
by old Lokko. Behind him marched the "Forty Thieves," 
while two Egyptian officers led the rear guard, driving 
one thousand cows and five hundred sheep, which swelled 
the little caravan into immense proportions and filled the 
air with their lowing and bleating. All the boys and girls 



256 A DANGEROUS SHELL 

carried loads, and the best of spirits prevailed. After a 
march of three miles, they halted in a little village, from 
which, at their approach, the inhabitants fled. 

Saving his flour for an emergency, Baker ordered the 
troops to eat that which was in the village. Kext morn- 
ing, on leaving, he tied up two cows as payment for it, 
which were worth fifty times as much as the flour, but he 
wished to show the inhabitants that he had no intention of 
wronging them. The next morning, he started at half 
past five, and, after marching for two hours and a half 
through a beautiful, undulating country, came to a little 
village where, the people being well acquainted with Lokko, 
received him kindly, and where he hired five natives to 
help carry his loads. At night, having made twelve miles, 
they stopped at a small village, where the natives brought 
him, as a great curiosity, a shell that Baker had fired at the 
Baris and which they had sold to these villagers for old 
iron. He inquired what they were going to do with it. 
** Oh," they said, ^' hammer it into hoes." It had never 
exploded, and he told them if they put it on the fire it 
would burst and tear them to pieces. They made no reply, 
but carried away the shell, and it is not known whether 
they ever tried the experiment. 

The next day, they again took up the line of march, the 
country being even more beautiful and charming than the 
day before. That night they slept at a village named 
Marengo. The next day, old Lokko seemed at fault about 
the direct road to Lahore, and Baker hired two natives as 
guides. The following day they marched fourteen miles, 
straight to the place, and halted beneath a tree to wait for 
the immense herds to come up. He was now out of the 
country of the Bari. The following day he held a regular 
market, trading off cattle for flour. The next day, the 
whole country turned out to hunt, and the natives returned 
in the evening with two buffaloes and a few small antelope. 



A NIGHT ATTACK. 231 

On the 24tli of February, all tlie troops commanded by 
Major Abdullah arrived, and reported that after Mr. 
Baker's departure the Baris had attacked him and tried to 
burn the vessels. On the night of the 17th, when Baker 
and his pa/ty were quietly sleeping at Moogoo, the troops 
left behind with the vessels were suddenly attacked, the 
sentries being nearly all asleep. The one cannon, on which 
they depended so much, was loaded with shell instead of 
canister, while the artillery-men were fast asleep beside it. 
The spies of the Baris having ascertained the state of things 
came suddenly upon them. If one or two of the caltle 
sentries had not been awake the whole force would have 
been massacred. As they approached the silent camp, they 
gave a succession of terrific yells and shrieks and rushed 
forward in a mass. Fortunately a row of thorn branches 
had been laid about sixty feet from the camp, which caused 
a momentary confusion, during which the cattle sentries 
fired off their muskets. The cattle guard of sixty men in- 
stantly jumped to their feet and poured in a volley on the 
dark mass of warriors that had been momentarily stopped 
by the thorn-bushes. This gave time for the camp to 
arouse and fire the cannon which, at that jDoint-blank 
range, loaded with canister, would have ploughed a lane 
through the crowded mass of naked warriors and scat- 
tered them in every direction. But the gunners fled as the 
appalling yells burst on their ears. One brave fellow, how- 
ever, stood by the gun and pulled the lanyard ; it missed 
fire, and he was immediately transfixed with spears and the 
gun captured. The savages now made for the vessels, with 
fire-brands in their hands. But the frightened troops had 
taken refuge here and, being driven into a corner, showed 
fightand poured rapid volleys into the yelling, excited crowd, 
and they Avere forced back and the gun recaptured. 

Another tube was now found and fitted, and the lanyard 
U 



258 A GRAND DANCE. 

again pulled. Again the tube missed fire. Another was 
brought and fitted, and this time the gun spoke with a roar 
that drove the assailants back and finally j)ut them to 
flight. The next morning, however, the big drums of the 
natives were heard, on both sides of the river, and thou- 
sands of savages were congregated on the neighboring 
heights, and a general attack was expected. But they 
thought better of it, and the troops reached Lahore and 
joiiaed Baker. 

The latter was now reaay to move forward. He en- 
gaged five hundred natives to accompany him — ^they to 
select the cows to be given in payment for their services 
beforehand. This was a tedious job, for they were very 
particular ; but the five hundred cows were at last selected 
and driven out, and everything was ready for a start, when 
a soldier deserted. The natives found him, but dared not 
arrest him, as he threatened to shoot them. Baker then 
sent out a sergeant, with three men of the " Forty," who 
soon brought him back, when he was put in irons. 

Before he started the natives had a grand dance — 
the men and women, stark naked, leaping, and yelling wild 
songs, and beating two sticks of wood together. Baker 
says " some of the girls were pretty, but being smeared 
with red ochre and fat, were' not attractive." At least a 
thousand were present. 

On the 29th of February, Baker ordered the reveille to 
be beaten, when, to his surprise, only four hundred and 
thirty-three of the fiYe hundred carriers engaged presented 
themselves — sixty-seven having absconded with their cows, 
nor could they be found, and he was compelled to start 
without tl^em. There was considerable quarreling about 
the choice of parcels to be carried, especially the zinc boat 
of Mr. Baker's, weighing three hundred and sixty pounds. 
But everything was finally arranged, and at half-past three 



'CAEAVAN IN MOTION. 259 

the caravan was put in motion, and Baker, with five 
picked men, pushed on at the rate of four miles an hour, 
leaving the rest far behind. They halted at six o'clock in 
a rocky ravine, where they expected to find water, but v/ere 
disappointed, and compelled to dig wells in the sand. At 
half-past seven the troops, and baggage, and cattle arrived 
by torchlight. 

The next morning, March 1st, there was a frightful 
scramble among the carriers over the packages they were 
to carry. Through a fine country of hills and forests they 
now marched for sixteen miles, but villages and large 
tracts of land, which had formerly been under cultivation, 
were now desolate, having been ravaged by the ruthless 
slave-hunter. This day Baker killed an antelope that 
would weigh over four hundred pounds. This day, as from 
an elevation he saw the White Nile flowing on in a calm, 
deep stream from the Albert Nyanza, far above all the 
cataracts, he felt sorely disappointed, that, owing to tlie 
peculiar obstructions in the White Nile, he had not been 
able to bring his steamers to this point, and launch them 
permanently on the Albert Nyanza. 

He now descended into a beautiful plain, to which he 
gave the name Ibrahimmeyah, in honor of the kliedive's 
father. " This point," he says, " is destined to become the 
capital of Central Africa." It will be the general depot 
for steamers when the trade of this vast region is developed 
by steamers on the Albert Nyanza. He adds : " It is a 
curious fact, that a short line of a hundred and twenty 
miles of railway would open up the very heart of Africa 
to steam-transport between the Mediterranean and the 
equator, when the line to Khartoum is completed." The 
country was lovely and full of game, and he " reveled " 
in it. 

On the 3d of February, he again started for Fatiko, 



260 < THE SLAVE-STATION. 

wliich lie readied in three days. He had been here years 
before. As he now approached it, he passed through a 
country fit for a paradise. The hne of march was as 
follows : Mr. Baker, his wife and Lieutenant Baker on 
liorseback in advance, preceded by five of the body-guard 
of the " Forty Thieves." Next came the remaining por- 
tion of the guard, commanded by Colonel Abd-el-Kader ; 
after which followed the regiment in single file, succeeded 
by the four hundred carriers with the baggage — -the herd 
of cattle bringing up the long, imposing procession. The 
sky was clear, the air in this high region cool and balmy, 
the scenery enchanting, which caused every heart to bound 
with joy ; while Baker was exhilarated with the fact that 
he had reached the hot-bed of the slave-trader, and came 
as a deliverer to the down-trodden inhabitants. The long 
caravan suddenly appeared on a green plateau that over- 
looked Fatiko about a mile distant, their presence being 
announced by the sound of bugles and the beat of drums. 
The inhabitants streamed out of their houses at the un- 
wonted sound, and gazed at the long procession winding 
down to the notes of the bugle, as if it were an apparition. 
Baker, in the meantime, dismounted, and, taking out his 
glass, scanned carefully the slave-station of his arch-enemy, 
Abou Saood, below, covering thirty acres. It was in wild 
confusion and alarm, and he heard, the slaver's drum beat, 
and saw slaves driven away in great haste. 

Baker and his wife had been here before as travelers, 
and were at ouce recognized ; but his present appearance, 
with a disciplined force of over two hundred men, was a 
new sight to Central Africa. He was hailed, however, on 
all sides as a deliverer. Abou Saood was taken completely 
aback. After he had secretly aroused the Baris to hos- 
tility at Gondokoro, he had come hither with seventy of 
tlieni as retainers, and reported that the great expedition 



A REVIEW OF baker's TEOOPS. 2G1 

liad failed, and was, therefore, lording it in his own way. 
With his old cunning, he professed great friendship for 
Baker and his policy. The latter, though knowing his 
duplicity, did not dare at this moment to liberate the thou- 
sand or more slaves he had at different stations, but set 
about his great work methodically and earnestly. He 
says of the men of this region, that they are the best- 
proportioned that he has hitherto seen — muscular, well- 
knit and handsome. The women were short, and it was a 
little singular that the usual custom among savage tribes 
was here reversed — the women going entirely naked, while 
the men were partially clothed with the skin of an antelope, 
thrown over the shoulder like a scarf. 

Baker now dispatched two faithful men, Gimoro and 
Shoole, to go throughout the country and inform the head 
men and all the inhabitants of his intentions, and that the 
atrocities committed by Abou Saood and his slave-hunters 
were at an end, and that in twenty days the latter would 
have to take all his people out of the country. The news 
they carried filled the inhabitants with joy ; for, once rid 
of these banditti, the deserted villages would be re230pu- 
lated and the neglected fields retilled. 

After their departure, he had a long conversation with 
an old servant of his in his former explorations, who gave 
him a detailed account of the acts of Abou Saood and his 
brigands for the last few years. It was a history of mas- 
sacres and cruelty. 

One day he reviewed his troops, a display that filled the 
natives with astonishment. The music of the band, which 
was composed of several bugles, drums and cymbals, to- 
gether with a big bass-drum, drove them into ecstasies. 
They are passionately fond of music, and Baker says that 
he believes that a London organ-grinder could march 
through Central Africa unguarded — followed the w^liole 



2 1) 2 AN EXTRAORDINARY DANCE. 

way by an admiring and enthusiastic crowd, and adds; 
" As my troops returned to their quarters, with the band 
playing rather cheerful airs, we observed the women racing 
down from their vilhiges and gathering from all directions 
toward the common centre. As they approached nearer, 
the charms of music were overpowering, and halting for 
an instant, they assumed what they considered the most 
graceful attitudes, and then danced up to the band. In a 
short time my buglers could hardly blow their instruments 
for laughing at the extraordinary effect of their perform- 
ances. The women throughout the Shooli are entirely 
naked, and the effect of naked women bounding about as 
musical enthusiasts was very extraordinary. Even the 
babies were brought out to dance, and strapped to their 
mothers' backs, and covered with pumpkin-shells, like 
tortoises, were jolted about without the slightest considera- 
tion for the weakness of their necks, by their infatuated 
mothers. The men, squatted on the rocks, looked on in 
admiration. We stayed in this * paradise of Africa ' nearly 
two weeks, talking with the chiefs and putting things in 
order." 



CHAPTER XVL 

MARCH TO UNYOEO. 

THB ST ART— EXODUS OP THE WHITE ANTS— A GREAT LUXURY— A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY— MASINDT— 
KING ABBA REGa— HIS WALK AND APPEARANCE— THE INTERVIEW— BUFFOONS— QUEER RESULT 
OF A LECTURE ON THE SLAVE TRADE— A STATION COMMENCED— PLANTING VEGETABLES— THB 
king's VISIT— MAGNETIC BATTERY— PHOTOGRAPHS— A CURIOUS INTERVIEW— FORMAL ANNEXA- 
TION OF THE COUNTRY— SENDS OFF A PART OF HIS FORCE— COMMERCE ESTABLISHED- 
VEGETABLES PLANTED— DARK OMENS— A DRUNKEN KING — ASKS AFTER LIVINGSTONE— A FORT 
BUILT. 

ABOU-EL S AOOD having sworn by the head of Ma- 
homet to do all that was right, Baker gave his instruc- 
tions to Major Abdullah, who was to be left with one hun- 
dred men in the place, and, on the 18th of March, started for 
Unyoro, seventy-eight miles south across an uninhabited 
prairie, nothing occurring to break the monotony of the 
march except the stalking now and then of an antelope by 
Bakpr. On the 23d, they came opposite the last station of 
AboQ Saood, commanded by a man named Suleiman, who, 
two days after, summoned his men to volunteer for the gov- 
ernment as irregular troops. On the 28th, Baker received 
a visit from the great sheikh, Lokara, who was commander- 
in-chief of Abba Rega's army, encamped a few hours' 
march on the banks of the Nile, ready to attack King 
Bionga, who was settled on an island in the river, farther 
up. He came to ask his aid in his war against Bionga, 
which the latter refused to give. While here he witnessed 
an exodus of young white ants from the mound in which 
they had been hatched out. Millions of these large, fat 
and winged insects began to struggle out and prepare for 

265 



266 EXODUS OF WHITE ANTS. 

their first short flight, and were quickly caught by the men 
with lighted wisps of straw. The annual exodus of these 
ants takes place at the commencement of the rainy season, 
and the gathering of them before they can fly is an im- 
portant harvest in Central Africa. They are considered 
a great delicacy when fried in a little butter. Baker, 
although now started on his journey still farther south, 
toward the equator, Avould have stopjDcd had he known how 
Abou Saood, at Fatiko, was plotting agaiuist him. Igno- 
rant of this he kej^t on and traveled through a beautiful 
country, but, as everywhere else, desolated by the slave- 
traders. Though his carriers deserted him, he pushed 
resolutely on and, April 20th, from a hill sighted the Al- 
bert Xyanza Lake, only twenty miles distant. 

At last he arrived at Masindi, the capital of Unyoro. 
The town is large, composed of a thousand or more straw 
huts, shaped like a bee-hive and scattered around as if they 
had been dropped from the clouds at random. The next 
day, he visited the king, Abba Eega, officially. The king- 
was about twenty years old and dressed very neatly in 
bark-cloth. Baker explained to him, at length, the inten- 
tions of the khedive, and that he hoped the country, once 
freed from the slave-traders, would be prosperous and 
ha|3py. He told him, moreover, that he had not released 
all the slaves* that he had found at the different stations 
because he had no way of returning them home, but now 
he should do so. 

The next day, Baker made suitable preparations to 
receive the king in return. But, after waiting a long time, 
the latter sent word that he w^ould rather Baker would 
come to his house, evidently being afraid of foul play. 
Baker bade the messenger tell the king that he was not 
old enough yet to have learnt good manners, and that he 
should at once dismiss his troops that had been kept waiting 



KING ABBA REGA's VISIT. 267 

for two hours and ordered the bugler to sound the " return.'' 
The sound of the bugle terrified him, and he agreed to 
come at once, and the troops resumed their old position. 
" In a few. minutes," he says, " a great din of horns, and 
drums, and wdiistles announced his approach, and we ob- 
served him walking down the road with an extraordinary 
gait. He w^as taking enormous strides, as though carica- 
turing the walk of a giraffe." As he stalked along, he was 
followed by a number of chiefs. When he came opposite 
the band, the bugles, and drums, and cymbals saluted him 
with such a terrible din that he forgot his gait and cau- 
tiously, shyly entered the tent of Baker and hesitatingly 
took his seat upon the divan which had been prepared for 
him, while a crowed of two thousand or more surrounded 
the tent, which was guarded by Baker's troops. The 
young king was about five feet, ten inches in height, with 
a very light complexion and beautifully-shaped hands, 
which were kept scrupulously clean. His forehead was 
low but broad, and his mouth large, with exceedingly white 
but prominent teeth. He was cruel, cunning and treach- 
erous, and the moment he mounted the throne invited all 
his principal relations to visit him, and then treacherously 
murdered them. He was suspicious of Baker, and would 
not drink the coffee and sherbet offered him. The con- 
versation soon turned upon Bionga, and the king took it 
for granted that Baker would assist him to get rid of his 
enemy, as otherwise, he said, it would be useless to attempt 
any improvement in the country. Baker changed the con- 
versation by ordering a large metal box to be brought 
forward, filled with an assortment of presents. Among 
these was a watch, which Baker told him was intended for 
his father, who was his friend when he visited the country 
before. The king appropriated them all. Baker gave him, 
also, a musical snuff-box. After some time had been spent 



2G8 THE king's buffoons. 

examining the toy, lie again entered at length on the object of 
his mission and how he hoped to open an extensive com- 
merce with the country, etc., etc. To all of which Abba 
Hega's constant reply was, it was all useless to attempt any- 
thing till Rionga was killed and he must help him. Baker 
declined, saying he hoped to make peace between them. 
But to all his propositions, the young barbarian replied, 
" You were my father's friend, your wife was the same. 
My father is dead ; but Bionga is still alive. Now, you 
are my father and your wife is my mother ; will you allow 
your son's enemy to live ?" 

Baker had no idea of being a father to the young repro- 
bate, and changed the subject to Abou Saood. He found 
that the latter had told a pack of absurd lies about him, 
«ud, moreover, had acted treacherously. 

After the interview was over, a space was cleared for a 
number of buffoons of the king to exhibit themselves. A 
(jurious theatrical scene was performed, followed by a knock- 
down fight with clubs — the whole ending in a disgusting 
act of indecency, which created roars of laughter among 
tlie natives. 

Baker now set about establishing a station, and began to 
build a government house. He also commenced restoring 
slaves and punishing slave-traders. He had given up 
lecturing the natives on the cruelty of the slave trade. It 
was all right so long as their women and children were not 
taken. In fact, slaves were considered by them a legiti- 
mate article of commerce. Once, when Baker had been 
lecturing an old chief on the wickedness of the practice, 
the chief asked him, when he had finished, if he had a 
son. The latter replied that his sons were all dead. " In- 
deed !" exclaimed the savage. " I have a son ; an only 
son ; he is a nice boy, a very good boy," he then went on 
to expatiate on his good qualities, the chief of which, that 



WONDERFUL GROWTH OF VEGETABLES. 239 

he was always hungry , and wound up by saying " lie's a 
good boy, indeed, and lie's my only son. Til sell him to 
you for an iron sjpadeP It was plain the lecture on slavery 
had not yielded much fruit. 

Besides the erection of a government house. Baker now 
began a dwelling for himself, and commenced to clear away 
some fifty acres of ground for the planting of vegetables. 
But Abba Bega, under one pretext or another, did not sup- 
ply the necessary laborers. Things did not go on smoothly 
between Baker and this young barbaric king Baker now 
promised to send to Fatiko, one hundred and sixty miles 
distant, and recover there all the slaves that Abou Saood 
had taken captive in his dominion, and then order Major 
Abdullah, with the one hundred troops there, to join him 
when Bionga, his old enemy, would have to come to terms 
peaceably or forcibly. This plan seemed to satisfy Abba 
ItCga, especially as he thought this would necessarily be 
tiie first step toward conquering Bionga. In the mean- 
while. Baker amused the young savage with sky rockets 
and other European marvels. 

All this time the station was progressing rapidly. The 
soil was so rich that -the seeds planted sprung up like magic. 
Melons, pumpkins, cucumbers and cotton seeds showed 
themselves above ground in three days after they w^ere 
planted. Baker's private residence, which was capacious 
and well-furnished for Central Africa, had been com- 
joleted. This, with everything else that Baker did, w^as 
reported to Abba Bega by his spies, that were always 
hanging about. 

Things did not wear a satisfactory aspect, although 
nothing was done alarming wdiich was not declared to be 
merely a practical joke. One night, especially, a hellish 
noise of drums and shouts seemed to announce an attack 
on the camp, but nothing came of it. The next morning 



270 THE MAGNETIC BATTERY. 

after tins very serious practical joke, Baker sent to the 
king to come and visit him. But the messengers returned, 
saying that he was either drunk or asleep. In fact, it was 
the custom of this young negro king to get drunk every 
night and sleep till two o'clock next day, when he dressed 
and attended to public business. He was suspicious of 
Baker, but the latter, on the 11th of May, prevailed on 
him to visit him, and he was astonished and delighted at 
the sujDerb apj)earance of the room, which had been adorned 
with all sorts of goods, and musical instruments, and toys of 
endless variety. The magnetic battery was the chief ob- 
ject of curiosity, and the king ordered each of his chiefs to 
take a shock, the effect of which sent him into roars of 
laughter. At length one of the wires gave way as one of 
the members of his royal cabinet was kicking and rolling 
on the ground, which finished the entertainment. The 
king now wished to see the private apartments. As they 
entered, each one put his hand on his mouth, and cried, 
" Wah ! wah !" in astonishment at the magnificent display 
that met their eyes. The large looking-glasses that had 
been brought on as presents — especially two, that hung 
opposite each other, giving an endless reflection — com- 
pletely bewildered them, and they cried out, "Magic!" 
The photographs were next examined, and the king wanted 
to know why the eyes in all the pictures kept looking at 
him, whichever way he turned. This was also magic. 
The guns and various breech-loading rifles were curiously 
examined, and the large musical-box, set agoing, which the 
king thought would be an excellent thing to send him to 
sleep when too drunk to play himself He begged for 
everything, even Mrs. Baker's trinkets, and was vexed that 
they were not given him. A small and beautifully-made 
revolver was shown him, and he asked : " Does this belong 
to the 'sit' ' woman ' too ?" When told that it did, he 



ANNEXING THE COUNTKY. 271 

burst out laugliing, saying : " Do women also carry 
arms, in your country ? I see everything belongs to the 
'sit.'" 

]\Irs. Baker now gave him some Venetian beads and a 
handsome gilt bracelet, set with four large French emeralds 
— something he had never seen before — together with a 
few strings of imitation pearls, which delighted him, and 
the greedy young cub was finally got rid of. 

The day was fixed for erecting the flag and taking pos- 
session of the country formally in the name of the khedive. 
The troops assembled in the morning, the flag was hoisted, 
the salutes made, the drums beat and the volleys fired ; 
and, as far as mere form went, the country was annexed 
to Egypt. 

]\Ir. Baker had constant trouble with this young bar- 
barian, who had more of tliq thief, and liar, and traitor 
about him than any man he had yet seen. 

On the 2od of May, he sent off the party to Fatiko, 
bearing dispatches to England and Egypt. He also sent 
instructions to Major Abdullah to arrest Abou Saood and 
Suleiman and send them to Gondokoro, and march him- 
self with his detachment to Foweera, near Bionga's capital. 
This reduced his force to a hundred regulars, four sailors 
and four armed Baris. 

]Mr. Baker now began to carry out one of the objects of 
his expedition, which was, after taking measures to break 
lip the slave trade, to establish the industries of civilized 
life. There was a vasC amount of ivory in this region, an.i 
he began to trade off goods for it. Those that the natives 
prized most were toys — such as beads, mirrors, butchers' 
knives, gaudy-colored handkerchiefs, ear-rings, and all 
sorts of cheaply-gilded ornaments. A couple of shillings' 
worth of these would buy a tusk worth $150. Although 
this looks like taking advantage of the savage, it must be 



272 THREATENING OMENS. 

remembered that these paltry trinkets were worth to him 
more than money or valuable articles of clothing. He was 
well satisfied with the bargain, for he got just what he 
wanted. Of course, valuable goods wo*uld take the jAace 
of these baubles — cloths for dresses, implements of hus- 
bandry and mechanical tools be in demand as civilization 
advanced. The troops behaved well, and kept order as 
quietly as a police force would have done. Baker next 
attempted to establish a school — -making a young man, a 
clerk of his detachment, schoolmaster. Everything that 
had .been sown was above ground — such as cucumbers, 
melons of various kinds, pumpkins, radishes, onions, to- 
matoes, as well as some wheat and cotton — all growing 
with that luxuriance and rapidity seen nowhere except in 
the tropics. Every cottage was surrounded by a garden ; 
boys and girls had formed , partnerships in raising vege- 
tables, and things began to wear ,a civilized aspect. 
Although so near the equator, the air Y>^as cool and 
invigorating, for they were nearly four thousand feet 
above the sea level. The only drawback was, tlie men 
were intolerably lazy, and passed most of the day sleeping, 
or idling around those at work. But amid all this quiet 
and peaceful life, Baker could not but 'observe that things 
had changed since he had sent away so large a part of his 
force to Fatiko. At length he became so uneasy, that he 
sent a messenger to bring the party back. 

The king, in the meantime, began to show his real char- 
acter ; he studiously kept aloof and did not furnish the 
provisions as he had promised, while the chiefs showed a 
different demeanor. Suddenly, one day, things seemed to 
have come to a head. While Baker was drilling his troops, 
as usual (lie and his officers being unarmed), the huge war- 
drum in the house of the king sounded, and in less than 
ten minutes, horns were blowing in every direction, and the 



A DRUNKEN FEEAK. 273 

negroes came pouring in from all quarters, till in an in- 
credible short space of time five or six thousand men were 
gathered around the little band. Baker immediately gave 
orders to form a square, and^ with the officers, stepped in- 
side of it, and a row of fixed bayonets confronted the 
crowd on every side. This puzzled them, though they 
danced within a few feet of the glittering points of steel. 
Baker gave strict orders not to fire, and he and the officers 
stepped outside the little phalanx of eighty men. Walking 
quietly up to two of the principal chiefs he pretended to 
think it was all a joke, saying carelessly, "well done, fa- 
mously managed, let us have a general dance." While 
they hesitated, he ordered the band to strike up a lively 
tune. Whatever had been the original intention, all hos- 
tile demonstrations now ceased, and Baker demanded to see 
the king. After some delay he came out, but so drunk 
that he apparently comprehended nothing, and soon reeled 
back to his hut. Baker now demanded of the principal 
chief the meaning of this strange proceeding, but he could 
give no satisfactory answer, except that the king was so 
drunk that he beat the war-drum without knowing what lie 
was about. He told him the thing must not happen agai n, 
for if he allowed his warriors to surround his troops in this 
fashion, he should certainly fire into them. On the whole, 
he felt he had a narrow escape, and began to have serious 
misgivings for the future. 

Ten native merchants, arriving at this time from Kara- 
gwe, a long distance off, reported that two travelers were 
with their king. Baker questioned them very closely to 
ascertain if one of them might not be Livingstone, but he 
was convinced that neither could be. 

As May now drew to a close, Baker became very anxious 
— the native warriors assembled in great numbers and as- 
sumed a hostile attitude, which he could not account for. 



274 



A DRUNKEN FREAK. 



Not dreaming of hostilities, he had not prepared for defense 
and, hence, became concerned for the safety of his troops, 
and at once began ta erect a fort or stockade, and in three 
days (on the 5th of June) had completed it. He now felt 
secure. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

BATTLE OF MASINDI. 

THE TROOPS POISONED — A SUDDEN ATTACK— THE TOWN SET ON FIRE— A SAD SPECTACLE— BAKEB 
DISCOURAGED— A PERILOUS POSITION— FEARS OP ABDULLAH— HYPOCRISY OF ABBA REGA— 
PRESENTS PASS BETWEEN HIM AND BAKER— TREACHERY— A NARROW ESCAPE— BAKER'S 
QT^A-RTERS SET ON FIRE— A SECONT) ATTACK— THE NEIGHBORING VILLAGES SET ON FIRE— F07iE- 
THOUGHT OF BAKER'S WIFE— PREPARATIONS TO START FOR RIONGA. 

BUT matters grew steadily worse, until one day, juut 
after dinner, word was brought Baker that many vi 
the troops appeared to be dying. On inquiring what w-^is 
the matter, he was told that they had been drinking sor.te 
plantain cider which the natives had sent them. A hor- 
rible suspicion shot through his mind, and he immediately 
flew to his medicine-chest and began to give antidotes. 
He at once suspected that this was preliminary to an attack 
by the natives. With half the troops sick or dying, they 
expected to make quick work with the remainder. Henc\% 
as night drew on. Baker had all the sick taken inside the 
fort and the sentries doubled. About a quarter to six, he 
was walking with his wife, smoking his pipe, suspecting 
nothing, when he says : 

" Suddenly we were startled by the savage yells of some 
thousand voices, which burst unexpectedly upon us ! 

"This horrible sound came from the direction of Ma- 
tonse's house, and was within a hundred and twenty yards 
from where we stood ; but the town was not visible, owing 
to the thick covert of oil bushes. 

15 , 275 



27G A SUDDEN ATTACK. 

" The savage yells were almost immediately followed by 
two rifle-shots in the same direction. 

" ^ Sound the taboor !' Fortunately I gave this order to 
the bugler at my side without one moment's delay. 

"I liad just time to tell my wife to run into the divan 
and get my rifle and belt, when the sharpshooters 02)ened 
fire upon me from the bushes, within a few yards. 

" I had white cotton clothes, thus I was a very con- 
spicuous object. As I walked toward the divan to meet 
my rifle, the sergeant who followed close behind me fell, 
shot through the heart. Poor fellow, the shot was aimed 
at me. 

" The troops had fallen into position with extraordinary 
rapidity, and several ascended the roof of the fort, so as to 
see clearly over the high grass. A soldier immediately fell, 
to die in a few minutes, shot through the shoulder-blade. 
Another man of the * Forty Thieves ' was shot through the 
leg, above the knee. The bullets were flying through the 
government divan and along the approach. A tumultuous 
roar of savage voices had burst from all sides, and the 
whole place was alive in a few instants after the first two 
shots had been heard. Thousands of armed natives now 
rushed from all directions upon the station. A thrill went 
through me when I thought of my good and devoted Mon- 
soor ! My wife had quickly given me my belt and breech- 
loading double rifle. Fortunately, I had filled up the 
pouches on the previous evening with fifty rounds of 
cartridges. 

" The troops were now in open order, completely around 
the station, and were pouring a heavy fire into the masses 
of the enemy within the high grass, which had been left 
purposely uncleared by Abba E-ega, in order to favor 
this treacherous attack. The natives kept up a steady fire 
upon the front from behind the castor-oil bushes and the 



FIEINQ THE TOWN. £77 

densely-tlironged houses. With sixteen men of the ' Forty 
Thieves/ together with Colonel Abd-el-Kader and lieu- 
tenant Baker, E.. N., I directed a heavy fii-e into the 
covert, and soon made it too hot for tlie sharjishooters. I 
had ordered the blue lights at the commencement of the 
attack. My black boys, Saat and Beltaal, together with 
some soldiers, now arrived with a good supply. Covering 
their advance with a heavy fire from the Sniders, the boys 
and men rushed forward and immediately ignited Abba 
ilega's large divan. These active and plucky lads now ran 
nimbly from hut to hut, and one slight touch of the strong 
fire of tlie blue lights was sufficient to insure the ignition 
of the straw dwellings. 

*' I now sent a party of fifteen Sniders, under Lieutenant 
Ferritch Agha, one of my most courageous officers, with a 
supply of blue lights, to set fire to the town on our left 
flank, and to push on to the spot where the missing Mon- 
soor and Ferritch had fired their rifles. 

" Every arrangement having been rapidly carried out, 
the boys and a few men continued to fire the houses on our 
right flank ; and giving the order to advance, our party of 
sixteen rushed forward into the town. 

"' The right and left flanks were now blazing, and the 
flames were roaring before the wind. I heard the rattling 
fire of the Sniders, under Firritch Agha, on our left, and 
knowing that both flanks were now thoroughly secured by 
the conflagration, we dashed straight for Abba Eega's 
j)rincipal residences and court, driving the enemy before 
us. Colonel Abd-el-Kader was an excellent officer in 
action. We quickly surrounded Abba Bcga's j^rcmises 
and set fire to the enormous straw building on all 
sides. 

" If he had been at home, he would have had a warm 
reception, but the young coward had fled with all his 



278 TERRIFIC CONFLAGRATION. 

women before the action had commenced, together with the 
magic bamba or throne and the sacred drum. 

" In a few minutes, the conflagration was terrific, as the 
great court of Abba Rega blazed in flames, seventy or 
eighty feet high, which the wind drove in vivid forks into 
the thatch of the adjacent houses. 

"We now followed the enemy throughout the town, and 
the Sniders told with sensible effect wherever they made a 
stand. The blue lights continued the work of vengeance; 
the roar of flames and the dense volumes of smoke, min- 
gled with the continued rattle of musketry and the savage 
yells of the natives, swept forward with the breeze, and the 
capital of Unyoro was a fair sample of the infernal regions. 

" The natives were driven out of the town, but the high 
grass was swarming with many thousands, who, in the 
neighborhood of the station, still advanced to attack the 
soldiers. 

" I now ordered ' the Forty ' to clear the grass, and a 
steady fire of Snider rifles soon purged the covert upon 
which the enemy had relied. 

" In about an hour and a quarter, the battle of Masindi 
was won. Not a house remained of the lately extensive 
town. A vast open space of smoke and black ashes, with 
flames flickering in some places w^here the buildings had 
been consumed, and at others, forked sheets of fire where 
the fuel was still undestroyed, were the only remains of the 
capital of Unyoro. 

*^ The enemy had fled. Their drums and horns, lately 
BO noisy, w^re now silent. 

*^ I ordered the bugle to sound ^ cease firing.' We 
marched through the scorching streets to our station, where 
I found my w^ife in deep distress. 

" The bugle sounded the assembly, and the men mus- 
tered and fell in for the roll-call. Four men were missing. 



DEATH OF MONSOOK. 279 

" Lying on the turf close to the fort -wall, were four 
bodies, arranged in a row, and covered with cloths. 

" The soldiers gathered around them as I approached. 

" The cloths were raised. 

" My eyes rested on the pale features of my ever-faithful 
and devoted officer, Monsoor ! There was a sad expression 
of pain on his face. I could not help feeling his pulse ; 
but there was no hope; this was still. I laid his arm 
gently by his side and pressed his hand for the last time., 
for I loved Monsoor as a true friend. His body was 
pierced with thirty-two lance wounds ; thus he had fought 
g{\llantly to the last, and he had died like a good soldier ; 
but he was treacherously murdered, instead of dying on a 
fair battle-field. 

" Poor Ferritch Baggara was lying next to him, with 
two lance wounds through the chest. 

" The other bodies were those of the choush who had 
fallen by my side, and the soldier who had been shot on 
th^ j)arapet. 

"We were all deeply distressed at the death of poor 
Monsoor. There never was a more thoroughly unselfish 
and excellent man. He was always kind to the boys, and 
would share even a scanty meal in hard times with eitlier 
friend or stranger. He was the lamb in peace and the 
lion in moments of danger. I owed him a debt of grati- 
tude; for although I was the general, and he had been 
only a corporal when he first joined the expedition, he had 
watched over my safety like a brother. I should ' never 
see his like again.' 

"Monsoor was the only Christian, excepting the Euro- 
pean party. 

" The graves were made. I gave out new cloth from 
the stores in which to wrap the bodies of four of my best 
men, and they were buried near the fort. 



280 A NAUnoW ESCAPE. 

" lij heart was very heavy. God knows I had worked 
with the best intentions for the benefit of this country, and 
this was the lamentable result. My best men were trea- 
cherously murdered. We had narrowly escaped a general 
massacre. We had won the battle, and ]\Iasindi was 
swept from the earth. What next ? 

" I find these words, which I extract from my journal, 
as they were written at that moment : 

"'Thus ended the battle of Masindi, caused by the 
horrible treachery of the natives. Had I not been quick 
in sounding the bugle and immediately assuming a vig- 
orous offensive, we should have been overwhelmed by 
numbers.' " 

It was a narrow escape for the expedition, and shows on 
what apparently trivial incidents not only an expedition 
may fail, but a great moral enterprise come to nought and 
the fate of a continent be changed. Had Baker fallen 
before the bullet so coolly aimed at him, it is doubtful 
v/hcther another expedition would have been started for 
the same great object during this century. 

Baker now felt himself in a perilous position. Although 
one of the chiefs assured him that Abba Bega had nothing 
to do with this treachery, but that it was the work of Ma- 
tonse, who had escaj^ed, and that the king had hid in the 
grass through fear, but had ordered provisions and ivory 
to be sent him as a present. Baker's suspicions, however, 
were not allayed ; and if Abba Bega was at the bottom of 
it, then his three hundred natives, whom he had sent as 
carriers with Abdullah to Fatiko, were traitors too, and 
would, doubtless, seize the first good opjDortunity to attack 
the unsuspecting commander and massacre him and all 
his troops. He could not communicate with him, and his 
only course, shut up here in the heart of Africa, seemed to 
be to push on to Bionga, whom he refused to attack at the 



PERILOUS POSITION. 281 

request of Abba Rega, and claim liis supj)ort. He knew 
that the defeat of Abba Rega's army and destruction of his 
capital had reached him, for he always had spies in Un- 
yoro, informing him of everything that transpired, and he 
would be only too glad to help complete the overthrow of 
his enemy. He thought, too, if he could only get word to 
him, that he would send three hundred of his own mea to 
Fatiko to take the place of those sent by Abba Rega, and 
save Abdullah on his way back, as he had, no 
doubt, received his order to return. While he was plan- 
ning how to get a message to Rionga, messengers arrived 
from Abba Eega, who attempted to explain the cause of 
the late outbreak, declaring that the blame lay on Matonse 
and that the king would soon deliver him up. Baker 
replied, that if the king could clear himself, he should 
be only too happy. The principal chief said that Abba 
Eega was in despair, and had given orders for a large 
quantity of ivory and provisions to be sent him. Baker, 
pretending to believe him, sent him a porcelain dish, that 
he had previously promised, as a peace offering. Through 
his telescope he could see everything that passed in the 
distant village where the king had taken u^p his abode, and 
when he saw that the present was received with great de- 
light he took hope. Two beautiful white cows were sent 
as a present in return, together with a polite message from 
the king ; the bearer stating that a large quantity of pro- 
visions and twenty large elephant tusks were on the way to 
him, as a token of Abba Bega's sincerity. This looked 
well, and Baker, to propitiate still more the black young 
reprobate, sent him the big musical box the former had so 
coveted in their first interview. Bamadon, the clerk, who 
had frequent meetings with the natives since the battle, and 
believed in the king's sincerity, was sent with. Hafiz to pre- 
sent the box. 



-82 baker's quarters on fire. 

. In the meantime, Baker, with two officers and two of 
" the Forty," walked around the burnt town, unarmed, in 
order to conciliate the natives that still lurked amid the 
ruins. He came upon two men standing close to the high 
grass at the edge of the town and asked them to approach. 
They said they were afraid of the two sentries, which were 
some forty yards in his rear. As he turned round to order 
tliese to retire, one of the villains hurled his spear at him, 
which struck at his feet and stuck quivering in the ground, 
and both dodged in the tall grass. This unlooked-for 
treachery disheartened him and, for once, Baker feels dis- 
couraged, and jots down in his journal : " I believe I have 
wasted my time and energy, and have uselessly encountered 
difficulties, and made enemies by my attempt to sujopress 
the slave trade and thus improve the condition of the 
natives.'' He was now anxious about Bamadon and Hafiz, 
who had not returned, for, as he said, " it is impossible to 
believe one word in this accursed country." Evening came 
and still they did not return, and Baker was without an 
interpreter. About eight o'clock, he was suddenly aroused 
by a bright light that soon illumined the whole sky. The 
quarters which he had abandoned for tl: e protection of the 
fort had been set on fire. The soldiers were immediately 
placed in position to receive an attack, and all remained as 
silent as death — nothing was heard except the roaring of 
the flames. Suddenly, loud yells rent the air, seemingly 
about two hundred yards distant, but not a soldier stirred. 
The negroes had, doubtless, supposed that the soldiers 
would rush out to extinguish the fire, when they would 
fall upon them and murder them. The attempt had failed. 

Two days passed, and still the messengers with the 
musical box had not returned. This was ominous. They 
never did return — they were cruelly murdered. 

On the 13th of June, the curtain was lifted, and Abba 



MRS. baker's forethought. 285 

Rega's treachery stood clearly reyealed. About ten o'clock 
a sudden rush was .made upon the cattle, grazing within 
sixty yards of the fort, and a general attack made upon 
the station. Baker at once ordered the men into line, and 
witli the bugle gave the order to charge bayonet. With a 
high and ringing cheer the gallant " Forty " dashed 
through the ruins of the town and into the high grass, 
scattering the frightened wretches in every direction. En- 
raged and thoroughly aroused, Baker now ordered Colonel 
Abd-el-Kader to take blue lights and burn every village 
in the neighborhood, and soon the whole region was a mass 
of rolling flame, that spread with frightful rapidity among 
the straw huts. This settled the matter, and Baker now 
saw that his only hope lay in pushing on fast as possible 
to Hionga. He knew that he would have to fight every 
inch of the way, but that was safer than to stay there and 
starve to death. It was possible they might starve on 
their way ; but, in this critical moment, Baker's wife told 
him that, as a precaution, while grain w^as abundant — she 
had, from time to time, secreted a little, till now there was 
hidden away about twelve bushels. This announcement 
gave new life to all, for they now had enough to last them 
during the seven days' march it would take them to reach 
Foweera, fifteen miles from Bionga and in his dominions,, 
and preparations were made for an immediate departure. 
The advance and rear guards were to carry nothing but 
their knapsacks and a small bag of flour, so as to be ready 
at any moment to meet the enemy. The order of march 
was carefully arranged, while buglers were scattered the 
whole length of the line, so that constant communication 
could be kept up by the troops, though concealed from 
each other by the tall grass. No talking was allowed — 
nor, however thirsty, was any one to stop and drink unless 
the bugle sounded halt. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE MAECH TO EIONGA. 



IHE START-— THE STATION FIRED— THE MARCH— THE COUNTRY AROUSED — AN AMBUSCADE—* 
HOWAETi; SPEARED — SECOND DAY'S MARCH— A SHARP FIGHT — STRIPPED FOR THE RACE— CON- 
STANT FIGHTING— EATING THE ENEMY'S LIVER— FOWEERA AT LAST REACHED— INTERVIEW 
WITH THE KING — HIS APPEARANCE— BAKER OFFERS TO MAKE HIM RULER OVER THE TERRI- 
TORY OF ABBA BEGA— A TREATY MADE— SEALED BY DRINKING EACH OTHERS' BLOOD— BA- 
KER BESOLVES TO RETURN TO FATIKO— ARRIVAL OF MESSENGERS WITH BAD NEWS— THE 
RETURN— THE WIFE COMPEI LED TO WALK— ARRIVAL AT FATIKO— TREACHERY— THE ATTACK 
—THE FLIGHT AND PURSUIT— THE VICTORY— BAKER TURNS SURGEON. 



THE morning of the 14th of June, 1872, dawned dark 
and dull, and a drizzling rain began to fall. At nine 
o'clock the advance guard filed along the path in silence, 
and halted at a little distance till the station that had been 
built with so much care should be fired. As the smoke 
curled slowly up, Baker thought with regret of the pictures 
and other mementos of home that he had been compelled 
to leave behind to perish in it. He waited till the flames 
had got under uncontrollable headway, and then gave the 
order "forward," and they soon entered the tall grass. 
Baker's wife carried a Colt's revolver in her belt and a 
quantity of sj^are ammunition in her bosom for his favorite 
rifle, the "Dutchman." When they had gone about a 
mile, they heard shouts in the rear, evidently made by the 
natives around the conflagration. The march was slow 
through the tail grass, while the rain came down steadily. 
Soon all over the country, in every direction, the sound of 
drums and horns was heard, as the alarm spread from 
village -to village. The little band heard them with 
286 



AN AMBUSCADE. 



287 



anxious hearts, for the fight was to be hundreds against 
one. 

They Vvere marching steadily on through the rain, when 
suddenly rapid volleys were heard from the advance guard, 
and the bugles rang out the order " halt." Lances now 
flew out of the grass, and tlowarte fell thrust through with 
a spear, which he himself pulled out of his body, but, 
before doing so, shot dead the negro who had hurled it. 
Baker bandaged up the wound as best he could, and, amid 
a shower of lances, again gave the order to advance and 
fire wherever a spear appeared. At length they came to 
open ground, where there was no grass. Here they halted 
and felled the plantain trees to make a wall around the 
camp. The night passed quietly, but Baker, as he lay 
awake and pondered on his condition, felt that the coming 
day would be one long running fight. The next morning, 
at half-past seven, they again started. Baker ordering the 
cattle to be left behind, as they cumbered his march, in 
about an hour and a half, they descended into a valley, in 
which was a broad swamp. They were just entering this, 
when suddenly there arose an uproar of yells, screams, 
drums, horns and whistles from thousands of concealed 
negroes, as if all the demons in hell had been let loose^ 
while a tremendous rush through tlie grass showed that a 
general attack was being made. Instantly every load was 
upon the ground, and the files knelt facing to the right 
and left. Next moment the lances were flying thickly 
across the path, several passing close to Mrs. Baker's head, 
but she never winced. The bugles rang out "fire," and 
the rapid volleys swept the grass in every direction. 
.Baker took his elephant breech-loader and sent explosive 
^shells from it into the grass, which carried consternation 
among the savages. When the fight was over and the 
men mustered, it was found that Howarte had died during 



288 EATING AN ENEMY 's LIVER. 

the conflict. They soon gained an open space, where they 
felt secure. 

Baker now saw that the men were too heavily laden, and 
he ordered a fire to be kindled, in wdiich everything (even 
Lieutenant Baker's naval uniform) which was not abso- 
lutely indispensable was thrown and consumed. He was 
stripping himself for the race. When this was done, the 
order to advance was again given ; and as they once more 
entered the cover, the horns and drums were again heard. 
Although frequent halts were made to receive the enemy, 
tliey made no attack, and they for some time marched 
unmolested. The ambuscades were frequent, and Abd-el- 
Kader received a painful wound in his arm. 

On the 16th of June, the little band started at half-past 
siic. From that time until ten they fought nearly the 
whole way, and one soldier was killed. The next day it 
WAS the same thing over again — one man was killed, and a 
l/oy, leading a horse a few paces in front of Baker, uttered 
a wild shriek, as a spear, intended for the latter, passed 
through his body. Mrs. Baker, in these long and heayj 
Biarches, became dreadfully fatigued. Soon a spear passed 
through Baker's horse, Zofteer, which was a grievous loss 
t>:> him. The next day wore slowly on, the air ever and 
anon, pierced by the now familiar cry of " Co-co-me, co- 
co-me," which always heralded an attack. On this day 
one of the negroes killed was dragged into camp, and a scene 
occurred of a most disgusting character. Baker's men 
had a superstitious idea that if they devoured a part of the 
enemy's liver, that every bullet they fired would kill an 
Unyoro. Accordingly, they had cut out the liver of this 
dead man, and were eating it raw. After the barbaric 
meal was finished, they cut the body into pieces and hung 
them on the limbs of trees, as a warning to all Unyoros 
following them. 



CAPTURE OF AN OLD SERVANT. 289 

It is not necessary to recapitulate the events of each 
day's march. How much the enemy suffered it was im- 
possible to tell, but Baker's small force was gradually 
diminishing, and its only hope lay in getting quickly into 
Rionga's territory. This they did on the 23d of June, after 
ten days of fatiguing march through an almost endless 
ambuscade, with a loss of ten killed and eleven wounded. 
It had been eighty days of almost continual fighting. 

The place where he encamped, and now began to build 
n new station, was called Foweera, and was only some 
fifteen miles from the island on which Kionga lived. .A 
fort was soon erected, though of a primitive kind. In tlie 
meantime no message was received from Rionga. This 
might be owing to the fact that the inhabitants on that 
side of the river were hostile to him, and Baker therefore 
felled palm-trees and constructed canoes, to cross over to 
the king. These were in a few days completed, and it w«s 
arranged that the whole party should cross in two triji e. 
This consisted now of ninety-seven soldiers and officers, 
five natives, three sailors, fifty-one women, and boys, aud 
servants, and three Europeans — in all, one hundred aud 
iifty-eight persons. 

On the evening of the 29th, a party in search of gre*in 
plain tains, captured a native and brought him into camp. 
He proved to be an old servant of Baker, in his former e5c- 
plorations of this country. Here was an unexpected piece 
of good luck. From him he le&rned that Rionga was 
friendly disposed, but that he had been deceived so often 
that he was afraid to trust himself in his hands. From him 
he also learned that Abdullah had been betrayed by the 
three hundred natives, as he feared, but that these had not 
gone on to Fatiko wdth the detachment. This showed that 
Abdullah was safe, which was a great relief to Baker. 

The next day messengers came from Rionga. Baker 



290 EXCHANGING BLOOD. 

sent back a present to the king, with, a message saying that 
lie had refused to join Abba Rega in a war against him,, 
and had, in consequence, been attacked by him, and that, 
if he, E-ionga, would swear allegiance to the Egyptian 
government, Abba Kega should be deposed, and he put in 
his place. He also sent a present of an entire piece of 
red Turkey cloth, and blue twill, and some handkerchiefs,, 
and asked for provisions, as his people were very hungry. 
In two days the j)rovisions came, and with them canoes to 
transport tl?e party to the island. > After paddling some- 
fifteen miles, they reached the island at fiye o'clock, but 
nobody was there to receive them— (" a true negro wel- 
come ") — and they camped for the night w^ith nothing but 
porridge and curry to eat. 

On the 18th, messengers arrived, saying that Rionga 
would visit the camp that morning. About eight o'clock^ 
drums beating and horns blowing, announced his arrival. 
He was a handsome man, about fifty years old, and with 
exceedingly good manners. It turned out that he had 
kept himself well posted in all that had transpired, and 
knew long ago that Abou Saood had conspired with Abba 
Hega for Baker's destruction, should he push on beyond 
Gondokoro, and seemed much gratified that the latter, long 
before he knew him, should have refused to molest him, and 
took him by the hand. He declared that he w'ould always 
remain faithful to the Egyptian government, but that to 
make the contract sure,»they must immediately exchange 
blood — a ceremony indispensable — if he would secure the 
co-operation of the people. The next morning wiis fixed 
for the performance of this ceremony, which Riongo de- 
clared, w^itli childish delight, would fill Abba Rega, wdien 
he heard of it, with despair. 

The ceremony commenced that evening w^itli drinking 
large quantities of plaintain cider, and the night passed in. 



FRIENDS FOREVER. 293 

singing and dancing. At about nine o'clock, amid several 
witnesses, Baker made a slight incision in his arm with a 
lancet, from which a few drops of blood flowed. Rionga 
immediately seized his arm and sucked it. Baker did the 
same to the king's arm, taking care, however, to make so 
slight an incision that but a single drop oozed forth, which, 
with extreme disgust, he was obliged to lick up. Colonel 
Abd-el-Kader and Lieutenant Baker performed the same 
ceremony with the king's minister and son, and the bond 
was sealed and they were friends forever. After this the 
heads of several tribes appeared, and a general coalition was 
formed which promised well for the future. Baker now 
arranged to leave Colonel Abd-el-Kader with sixty men, 
in the stockade he had built, to support Bionga, and return 
himself to Fatiko. 

On the 27th of July, he went down the river and ar- 
rived at his station in the middle of the afternoon. The 
next day, before starting, he saw eight natives, who shouted: 
^*Are you the pasha's soldiers?" (I.G.Baker's). Being an- 
swered that they were, they said that they were messengers 
«ent by Abdullah from Fatiko. Abou Saood, it seemed, 
had been carrying it with a high hand during Baker's 
absence. Wat-el-Mek, in command of the irregular forces, 
wished to remain true to the government, but this treach- 
erous slave-trader had prevented him. These messengers 
had come to find Baker, if alive, and hurry him back, for 
Abdullah was in danger of being overpowered and the sta- 
tion destroyed. If Baker had received this disheartening 
news sooner, he would not have left Colonel Abd-el-Kader 
behind with sixty men. But it was too late now to change 
his plan, and he immediately pushed on for Fatiko, some 
eighty miles distant. Only one horse was now left to 
Baker, and he had such a sore back that his wife had to 
walk, as the mud was too deep for the solitary donkey that 



294 ARRIVAL AT FATIKO. 

remained to liim. With only dried fish for food, they 
pushed rapidly on through the uninhabited wilderness, and 
on the third day arrived within ten miles of Fatiko. He 
here learned that an attack had been planned on Abdullah,, 
which was to be made by Wat-el-Mek and Ali Hussein,, 
while Abou Saood, its author, had prudently retired to 
Fabbo, twenty miles distant. 

On the 2d of August, Baker again set out, and marching 
rapidly through a beautiful country of dells, woods and 
open park-like lands, at last ascended the hill that rose 
toward Fatiko. As he approached the place, he ordered 
the bugles to sound the assembly. He entered the village 
at half-past nine, and was warmly received by Abdullah^ 
who simply said, as he grasped his hand, " Thank God, you 
are safe and here, all will go well now.'' No one from 
Abou Saood's station came to welcome him, which was meant 
as an insult. After Baker had changed his dress he or- 
dered Major Abdullah to form the troops in line, as he 
wished to inspect them. When he had finished the inspec- 
tion he was about to return, when Abdullah asked him to 
wait a little longer, as Wat-el-Mek, with his people, ^ere 
now approaching, with their numerous flags, to salute him. 
Seven large crimson flags upon tall staffs, and ornamented 
with ostrich feathers, marked the intervals in the advancing-^ 
line. Two hundred and seventy strong, they formed in 
line, in open order, directly facing the government troops. 
Wat-el-Mek was dressed in bright yellow, with loose flow- 
ing trowsers, and Ali Hussein in a snow-white long robe 
and black trow^sers. By way of complimenting Mm they 
had brought out two large cases of ammunition. These 
were placed wdth a guard under a tree. Baker's wife now 
suspected treachery and begged her husband to dismount. 
He, however, remained on horseback until all the arrange- 
ments were finished, when he ordered Abdullah to retire to 



' TREACHEEY. 29o 

» 

camp with the troops. He then sent to Wat-el-Mek, say- 
ing that he wanted to see him ; the latter promised to come 
but did not. Baker sent fixe different messengers, with the 
same resuU. He then ordered Abdullah to go, himself,, 
with some soldiers and, if he refused to come, arrest him. 
The bngie summoned the men, wlio^ had dispersed, and 
they immediately formed, two deep, in the open space in 
the camp. Lieutenant Baker offered to go and see Wat-el- 
Mek in person, and Baker, having given his consent, ad- 
vised him to take some soldiers with him. 

THE ATTACK. 

While he was giving them some instructions, he was in- 
terrupted by a volley of musketry, concentrated on the 
mass of scarlet uniforms. In a few seconds seven men 
were struck, and the bullets were whistling on every side. 
He says : 

" My wife, who was always ready in any emergency, 
rushed out of her hut with my rifle and belt. 

" The soldiers had already commenced firing by the time 
that I was armed and had reached the front, by the edge 
of the light fence of wattles, that were inferior to the 
lightest hurdles. 

" I now observed the enemy about ninety yards distant ; 
many of them were kneeling on the ground and firing, but 
immediately on taking a shot they retired behind the huts 
to reload. In this manner they were keeping up a hot 
fire. I perceived a man in white upper garments, but;^ 
with black trousers ; this fellow knelt and fired. I imme- 
diately took a shot at him with the * Dutchman,' and 
without delay I kept loading and firing my favorite little 
breech-loader at every man of the enemy that was decently 

ilressed. 
16 



296 THE "DUTCHMAN SPEAKS. 

" We should have lost many men if this hiding behind 
huts and popping from cover had been allowed to continue. 
I therefore ordered my 'Forty Thieves' together, and 
ordered the bugler to sound the charge with the bayonet. 

" Pushing through the narrow wdcker gateway, I formed 
some thirty or forty men in line and led them at full speed, 
with fixed bayonets, against the enemy. 

" Although the slave-hunters had primed themselves 
well with araki and merissa before they had screwed up 
courage to attack the troops, they were not quite up to 
standing before a bayonet-charge. The 'Forty Thieves* 
were awkward customers, and in a quarter of a minute 
they were amongst them. 

" The enemy were regularly crumpled up ! and had thej 
not taken to flight, they would have been bayoneted to a 
man. 

" I now saw Wat-el-Mek in his unmistakable yellow 
suit ; he was marching alone across a road about a hundred 
and eighty yards distant. He was crossing to my right ; 
and I imagined, as he was alone, that he intended to screen 
himself behind the houses, and then to surrender. 

" To my surprise, I observed that when he recognized 
me, he at once raised his gun and took a steady aim. I 
was at that moment reloading ; but I was ready the instant, 
he had fired and missed me. 

" He now walked quickly toward a hut across to my 
right. I allowed about half a foot before him for his j^ace 
and the 'Dutchman' had a word tD say. 

" The bullet struck his right hand, taking the middle 
finger off at the root, and then striking the gun in the 
middle of the lock-plate, it cut it completely in halves as 
though it had been divided by a blow with an axe. He 
was almost immediately taken prisoner. One of 'the 
Forty' (Seroor) w^as so enraged that he was with difficulty 



THE VICTORY. 



290 



prevented from finishing Wat-el-Mek with a bayonet- 
thrust. 

" I now ordered a general advance at the double ; and 
the troops spread out through the extensive town of huts, 
which occupied about thirty acres. 

"As we ran through the town, I observed about one 
hundred and fifty of the enemy had rallied around their 
flags, and were retreating quickly, but steadily, in the 
direction of the Shooa hill. They continued to turn and 
fire from the rear of their party. Having reduced the 
distance to about one hundred and fifty yards, the crimson 
«ilk banners afforded excellent marks for rifle practices. 
They fell to the right and left, as the shots were directed a 
little low, so as to hit the bearers. In a few minutes not a 
flag was to be seen. The fatal Sniders poured bullets into 
the dense body of men, who, after wavering to and fro, as 
the shots thinned their number, at length ran off without 
any further effort to maintain a formation. For upwards 
of four miles Lieutenant Baker and I chased these ruffiaTis 
with the * Forty Thieves.' Many were killed in the pvx- 
suit ; and upon our return to the camp, at Fatiko, at 2 
P. M., we had captured a herd of three hundred and s'ix 
cattle, one hundred and thirty slaves, fifteen donkeys, 
forty-three prisoners, seven flags, together with the enth-e 
station. The enemy had suffered the loss of more thun 
half their party killed.'' 

Abdullah's men had behaved shamefully, and all the 
fighting had been done by the " Forty Thieves." These, 
and Baker, and the other ofiicers, had neither eaten nor 
drank since the previous evening, except to quaff a little 
water as the pursuit ended. They, besides, had walked 
ten miles in the morning to reach Fatiko — fought the 
traitors — chased them four miles on a run, and then re- 
turned four miles. 



300 



BAKER TURNS SURGEON. 



Baker^s wife, who seemed equal to every emergency, and 
whose forethought was as remarkable as her presence of 
mind in danger, had prejiared a warm breakfast for them,, 
which was eaten with a sharpened appetite. 

Balcer had asked where the villain Ali Hussein was. 

" Dead !" cried a number of voices. 

" Are you certain ?" asked Baker. 

"We will bring you his head," was the reply, and 
started off. 

He had hardly finished his breakfast, when he heard a 
heavy thud on the floor of the hut, and turning, saw there 
the ghastly head, with the hair matted with blood. There 
was no mistaking the villainous expression, even in death. 
He had received two bullets, but was still alive when 
found. The natives, however, soon dispatched him. 

Baker, owing to the death, previously, of his chief sur- 
geon, and the retirement of another at Gondokoro, had 
been left with so weak a medical staff, that he could take 
no surgeon with him, and he therefore was now compelled 
to act as one himself. In the fight he had not lost a single 
man killed, but more than a sixth of his force had been 
wounded, some of them badly. He dressed the wounds 
with a weak solution of carbolic acid, and removed a bullet 
from the broken thigh of one of his brave " Forty," and 
soon had them all doing well. 

The gun of Wat-el-Mek, which he had shivered with a 
bullet, was one given him by Speke in his travels. The 
man seemed to be so truly penitent for his conduct, and 
averred so stoutly that he acted under the orders of Abou 
Saood, and swore so solemnly that he would serve Baker 
faithfully in future, that the latter, wishing to have his 
services, for he was an invaluable man, finally pardoned 
him. 

Abou Saood swore that he had nothing to do with the 



A PROSPEROUS FUTURE. 301 

late conspiracy, and though Baker knew that he lied and 
ought to be hung, yet he thought it more prudent to let 
him alone, and the consummate villain started for Cairo to 
lodge a complaint against him with the khedive of Egypt. 
From this date all trouble was over. Baker had gained 
a complete victory. Perfect confidence was established 
among the natives throughout the large country of Shooli ; 
the children and women flocked to the camp ; marketing 
on a large scale was conducted quietly, and Baker felt 
rewarded for all the toils he had endured ; grieving only 
for those who had fallen while aiding him in the good 
work. Slave-hunting was at an end down to the equator, 
fields were planted, and a prosperous future seemed in store 
for Africa. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



ARRIVAL OF CANNIBALS — CHIU)REN DEVOURED— SMALL-POX DISPERSES THEM— A GRAND HUNT-^ 

THE MODE OF CONDUCTING IT BY NETS AND FIRE— THE RESULT— LIFE AT FATIKO— A SECOND 

HUNT— KILLING A LION— A WOMAN'S RIGHTS MEETING — A HAPPY COMISIUNITY, IN WHICH 

, >IEITHEB RELIGIOUS DOGMAS OR LAW CASES ENTER— NEWS FROM LIVINGSTONE— KING MTESA— 

- ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS — BAD MILITARY CONDUCT — BAKER WRITES OUT A SET OF RULES 

; Vi'OR ABDULLAH AND STARTS FOR HOME— RELEASES CAPTIVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN— AJv' 

'EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE NOT ASKED FOR— KISSED BY A NAKED BEAUTY— CONCLUDING 

>«EMARKS— A BHSSIONARY'S OUTFIT— OFFICAL REPORT— A HANDSOME TRIBUTE TO HIS WIFE— 

jiFRICA'S FUTURE. 



BAKER now sent to Gondokoro for reinforcements. 
In the meantime, a large body of Abou Saood's slave- 
banters, together with three thousand cannibals, arrived on 
the Nile from the far west, whom this arch-traitor had sent 
for before bis downfall, which he had not anticipated. 
These wretches were eating the children of the country as 
they advanced, and their proximity filled the people of 
Fatiko and the Shooli country with alarm. Baker at on.ce 
took measures to prevent them from crossing the Nile. 
He sent spies among them, and they finding they had been 
deceived by Abou Saood, began to quarrel among them- 
selves — agreeing in nothing but in devouring the children 
of the district. Providentially, at this critical juncture, 
the small-pox broke out among them and killed more than 
eight hundred of their number, which dispersed the re- 
mainder. Abba Eega had been defeated by E>ionga and 
his allies, and fled to the shores of the Albert Nyanza. 

Everything having at length been put on a peaceful 
footing. Baker turned his attention to hunting with the 
people of Fatiko, much to their delight, especially as they 
302 



A NET-HUNT. 



305 



were short of meat. When the grass is ready to burn, a 
grand hunt always takes place, in which nets form a con- 
spicuous part. Every man in the country is provided 
with a strong net of cord, twelve feet long and eleven feet 
-deep, with meshes six inches square. 

On the day appointed, the big drum is beaten and the 
natives assemble and select the region for hunting. Some- 
times a grand entertainment precedes a hunt, at which the 
n?-dves to the number of a thousand present themselves, 
psiinted with fresh cow-dung and adorned with ostrich 
fexthers, leopard skins, etc. On arriving in the district 
wJiere the hunt is to take place, the nets are lashed 
together and sunk in the grass, making an invisible fence 
avinile and a half long, while the men lay concealed behind 
a ^^creen of grass bound together at the top. 

When everything was arranged in this hunt, men went 
to windward some two miles to set fire to the grass. The 
gome would, of course, flee before the flames and rush 
unsuspectingly upon the nets, when they would be shot 
down. Every man is entitled to the game that is killed 
in his section of the net. But sometimes an animal is 
mortally wounded by a man stationed at his net, yet finally 
killed by his neighbor, which often causes serious quarrels. 
On this day, when everything was ready, and the men had 
already been stationed at regular intervals about two miles 
to windward, to wait with their fire-sticks for the appointed 
signal, Baker says that suddenly " a shrill whistle disturbed 
the silence. This signal was repeated at intervals to wind- 
ward. 

" In a few minutes after the signal, a long line of separate 
thin pillars of smoke ascended into the blue sky, forming a 
band extending over about two miles of the horizon. The 
thin pillars rapidly thickened and became dense volumes, 
until at length they united and formed a long black cloud of 



Sf06 



DKIVING THE GAME. 



smoke, that drifted before the wind over the bright, yellow 
surface of the high grass. 

" The natives were so thoroughly concealed, that no one 
would have supposed that a human being beside ourselves 
was in the neighborhood. I had stuck a few twigs into the 
top of the ant-hill to. hide my cap; and having cut for 
myself a step at the required height, I waited in patience. 

" The wind was brisk and the fire traveled at the rate of 
about four miles an hour. We could soon hear the distant 
roar, as the great volume of flame shot high through the 
centre of the smoke. The natives had also lighted the 
grass a few hundred yards to our rear. 

" Presently I saw a slate-colored mass trotting along the 
face of the opposite slope, about two hundred and fifty yard* 
distant. I quickly made out a rhinoceros, and I was in 
hopes that he was coming toward me. Suddenly he turned 
to my right and continued along the face, of the inclina- 
tion. 

"Some of the beautiful leucotis antelope now appeared 
and cantered toward me, but halted when they approached 
the stream, and listened. The game understood the hunt- 
ing as well as the natives. In the same manner that the 
young children went out to hunt with their parents, so had 
the wild animals been hunted with their parents ever since 
their birth. 

" The leucotis now charged across the stream ; at the 
same time a herd of hartbeest dashed past. I knocked 
over one, and. with the left-hand barrel, I wounded a leu- 
cotis. At this moment, a lion and a lioness, that had been 
disturbed by the fire in our rear, came bounding along 
close to where Molodi had been concealed with the lun- 
cheon. Away went Molodi at a tremendous pace, and he 
came rushing past me as though the lions were chasing him; 
but they were endeavoring to escape, themselves, and had 



BESUi-TS OP THE HUNT. 309 

BO idea of attacking. I was just going to take the inviting 
shot, when, as my finger was on the trigger, I saw the head 
of a native rise out of the grass directly in che ime of fire ; 
then another head popped up from a native who had been 
concealed, and, rather than risk an accident, I allowed the 
lion to pass. At one magnificent bound it cleared the 
stream and disappeared in the high grass. 

*^The fire was advancing rapidly and the game was 
<M)ming up fast. A small herd of leucotis crossed the 
brook, and I killed another, but the smoke had become so 
thick that I was nearly blinded. It was, at length, impos- 
sible to see ; the roar of the fire and heat were terrific, as 
the blast swept before the advancing flames and filled the 
air and eyes with fine black ashes. I literally had to turn 
and run hard into fresher atmosphere to get a gasp of cool 
air and to wipe my streaming eyes. Just as I emerged 
from the smoke a leucotis came past and received both the 
right and left bullets in a good place before it fell. The 
fire reached the stream, and at once expired. The wind 
«wept the smoke on before and left in view the black sur- 
face that had been completely denuded by the flames. 

** The natives had killed many antelopes, but the rhinoce- 
ros had gone through their nets like a cobweb. Several 
buffaloes had been seen, but they had broken out in dif- 
ferent directions. Lieutenant Baker had killed three 
leucotis, Abd-el-Kader had killed one and had hit a 
native in the leg with a bullet while aiming at a gallop- 
ing antelope. I had killed five. I doctored the native, 
and gave him some milk to drink, and his friends carried 
him home. Tliis was a very unfortunate accident, and from 
that day the natives gave Abd-el-Kader a wide berth. 

*' Most of the women were heavily laden with meat, the 
net«i were quickly gathered up, and with whistles blowing 
as a rejoicing, the natives returned homeward." 



310 A SECOND HUNT. 

The time now passed very pleasantly at Fatiko, and on 
the 30th of December, Baker went out again to hunt with a 
few natives in order to obtain some meat. About a half an 
hour after they were in position the whistles sounded — the 
smoke began to ascend, and soon a long line of fire stretched 
across the plain and moved slowly toward them. Shotf^ 
were now heard in various directions, and the game began to 
break cover in herds of several hundreds. Baker could see 
the game and heard the firing along the line, but did not 
get a shot. At length, however, he saw a buck antelope 
walking slowly straight toward him, and he expected in a 
fi)w minutes to have him within range, when he says : 

" Just at that moment I saw a long, yellow tail rise sud~ 
denly from the green hollow, and an instant later I saw a 
^i\e lion, with tail erect, that had evidently been disturbed 
by the advancing fire. 

"The lion was down wind of the buck leucotis, which' 
Tms now close to the unseen enemy, and was just descend- 
iog the bank which dipped into the green hollow ; this, 
ivould bring the antelope almost upon the lion's back, 
''j.'he two animals appeared to touch each other as the 
h.'ucotis jumped down the bank, and the lion sprang to 
one side, apparently as much startled as the antelope,, 
which bounded off in another direction. The lion now 
disappeared in the high grass, with the head tow^ard my 
position. I whispered to my boys not to be afraid, should 
it appear close to me, and at the same time I took the 
spare gun from Bellaal and laid it against the ant-hill, to 
be in readiness. This was a breech-loader, wath buck-shot 
cartridges for small antelopes. 

*' In a few moments, I heard a distinct rustling in the 
high grass before me. The two boys were squatting on 
the ground to my right. 

"Presently a louder rustling in the grass, within forty 



g 




A WOUNDED LIONESS. 313 

yards in my front, was followed by the head and shoulders 
of a large lioness, who apparently saw the two boys and, 
with her brilliant eyes fixed, she advanced slowly toward 
them. Not wishing a closer acquaintance, I aimed at her 
chest and fired the ' Dutchman.' The lioness rolled com- 
pletely over backwards, and three times she turned convul- 
sive somersaults, at the same time roaring tremendously ; 
but, to my astonishment, she appeared to recover, and I 
immediately fired my left-hand barrel. At this, she charged 
in high bounds straight toward my two boys. I had just 
ti\ne to snatch up my spare gun and show myself from be- 
hind the ant-hill, when the lioness, startled at my sudden 
ajipearance, turned, and I fired a charge of buckshot into 
h\».r hindquarters as she disappeared in the high grass from 
n?y right. I now heard her groaning in a succession of 
(i?ep guttural sounds, within fifty yards of me. In a few 
o inutes, I heard a shot from Abd-el-Kader, and he shortly 
ct'.me to tell me that the wounded lioness, with her chest 
3'jd shoulder covered with blood, had come close to his 
hiding-place; he had fired, and had broken her ankle^ 
j(dnt, but she was still concealed in the grkss. 

"Shooli and Gimoro now came up with some of the 
natives, as they had heard the lioness roar, and feared some 
accident might have happened. These were very plucky 
fellows, and they at once proposed to go close up and spear 
her in the grass, if I would back them up with the rifles. 

" We arrived at the supposed spot and, after a search, 
we distinguished a yellow mass within some withered 
reeds. 

" Shooli now proposed that he should throw his spear, 
upon which the lioness would certainly charge from her 
covert and afford us a good shot, if the guns were properly 
arranged. 

" I would not allow this, but determined to fire a shot at 



G14 A DESPERATE CHARGE. 

the yellow mass to bring lier out, if every one would be 
ready to receive her. 

" Lieutenant Baker was on my right, with a double- 
barreled express rifle that carried a No. 70 bullet. This 
minute projectile was of little use against the charge of a 
lion. 

" I fired into the mass at about twenty yards distance. 
The immediate reply was a determined charge, and the en- 
raged animal came bounding toward us with tremendous 
roars. The natives threw their spears but missed her. 
Mr. Baker fired, but neither he nor a left-hand barrel from 
the ' Dutchman ' could check her. Everybody had to run, 
and I luckily snatched a breech-loading No. 12, smooth- 
bore, loaded with ball, from a panic-stricken lad, and rolled 
lier over with a shot in the chest, when she was nearly in 
the midst of us. 

" She retreated with two or three bounds to her original 
covert. 

"I had now reloaded the * Dutchman,' and having given 
orders that every one should keep out of the way, and be 
ready, I went close up to the grass with Shooli, and quickly 
discovered her. She was sitting up like a dog, but was 
looking in the opposite direction, as though expecting an 
enemy in that quarter. I y/as within twelve yards of her, 
and I immediately put a bullet in the back of her neck, 
which dropped her head." 

She measured nine feet and six inches from the nose to 
the extremity of the tail. Inside her were the remains of 
an antelope calf, divided into lumps of about two pounds 
each, which the natives distributed among themselves as 
precious morsels. 

The women, who had come to look on Bak«r as their 
protector, and were happy and contented under his rule, 
Jieard of his encounter with the lioness, and held a meeting. 



NEWS OF LIVINGSTONE. 315 

in which it was resolved that he should not endanger his 
life again in this way. Mr. Baker jocosely remarks that 
this was not ''petticoat government, as they had not a rag 
on their bodies, but it was an assertion that they meant to 
protect the man who had protected them." He stayed 
here seven months, and says that perfect order prevailed — 
" there were no pickpockets, because nobody had a pocket 
to pick, for all were naked — there were no vagrants, beg- 
gars or anything to require a police — there were no cases 
of divorce, or crim. con., or in chancery — no high church 
or low church — no Dissenters, or Catholics, or Independ- 
ents — no Jews or Gentiles — no conflicting interests — no 
dogmas of any kind." 

To his great disappointment, he had obtained no direct 
news from Livingstone. But one day some envoys arris'ed 
from the great King Mtesa, of Uganda, of whom Stanley 
S|)eaks in such enthusiastic terms in his next and last 
exploring expedition two years later. Baker had written 
to him to send out his people in every direction in search 
of Livingstone. These envoys reported that the king had 
dispatched messengers to Ujiji, who learned that the ex- 
plorer had been there, but had crossed the lake to the 
west, since which nothing had been heard of him. Baker 
immediately wrote a letter to Livingstone, and gave it to 
these envoys, of which the following is a copy : ' . 

" Fort Fatiko (N. lat. 3° V, E. long. 32° 36'). 

February 13th, 1873. 
" My dear Livingstone — 

" Mtesa, the king of Uganda, has been searching for you 
according to my instructions sent to him in J\ine, 1872. 
He also forwarded my letters, to be given to you when met 
with. His envoys have- now visited me at Fatiko, with the 
report that Mtesa's messengers heard of you as having for- 



31G AERIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS. 

merly been at Ujiji ; but that you bad left tbat station and 
bad crossed tbe Tanganika to tbe west. Notbing more 
is known of you. I bave sent a soldier witb tbe envoys 
wbo convey tbis letter ; be will remain witb Mtesa. * * * 

" Mtesa will take tbe greatest care of you. He bas be- 
haved very well to tbe government. * * * 

** I trust, my dear Livingstone, tbat tbis letter may reach 
you. Do not come down tbe lake. It is now well known 
tbat tbe Tanganika is tbe Albert Nyanza; both known 
as the great MVootan N'zige. 

^ " A steamer, I trust, will be on the lake tbis year. 
" Ever, most sincerely, 

" Samuel W. Baker., H. H." 

Notbing better shows how uncertain all communication 
is in Africa than this message of tbe envoy's and Baker's 
letter. Mtesa's dominions are not far distant from the very 
lake of which Ujiji is tbe chief port, where Stanley found 
Livingstone, more than two years before, and with him ex- 
plored a large portion of it. Still this report was doubt- 
less true, and tbe -last departure of Livingstone referred to 
was tbe one taken after Stanley bad left. Tbis letter not 
only reached Mtesa, but tbe latter sent an answer back the 
whole way to Gondokoro.^ 

No word bad been received respecting the reinforcements 
he had sent for, and Baker began to despair, when, at last, 
at the end of three months, they arrived, though bringing 
no cattle with them. Tayib Agha, tbe officer in charge of 
them, bad shown bis utter unfitness to command troops, 
for not only had tbe Baris attacked him and killed twenty- 
eight of his men, but stripped the bodies and left them 
unburied, and carried off all tbe cattle. 

Baker bad now six hundred and twenty men, and he at 
once reinforced the various stations. He also wrote out a 



BELEASE OF THE CAPTIVES. 319 

code or set of rules to govern Major Abdullali, who was to 
remain in command at Fatiko, and turned his face home- 
ward. He had placed under his protection a number of 
women and girls of the Baris tribe, whom the Egyptian 
officers had pressed into their service to carry loads for 
them in their former journey from Gondokoro to Fatiko, 
and now took them back with him. Their captors had 
intended to make perpetual slaves of them, but Baker 
determined to restore them to their homes. On their way 
back he directed them to tell him when they came into 
their native country. One day, as they halted under a 
large tree for breakfast, about two miles from Gondokoro, 
the women and children approached in a timid and hesi- 
tating manner and told him that this was their country and 
that their villages were near by. They evidently had never 
fully believed him, which, he said, hurt him exceedingly. 
Looking at them sorrowfully, he exclaimed, " Go, my go>)d 
women, and when you arrive at your homes explain to 
your people that you were captured entirely against 7.viy 
will, and that I am only happy to have released yoii," 
For awhile they stood bewildered, and, looking around, as 
if hardly believing him to be in earnest. The next insta:iit, 
as the whole truth flashed on their dazed, overwhelmed 
hearts, they rushed on him in a body, and before he hi id 
time to think what they were about, a " naked beauty '' 
threw her arms about his neck and almost smothered him 
with kisses, ending by licking both his eyes and tongue in 
a manner far more affectionate than agreeable. If tJie 
sentries and servants had not come to his rescue, both he 
and his wife would have been subjected to the same exhi- 
bitions of affection and gratitude from each member of the 
naked group. 

After a few words of explanation to them, he gave each 
a present of beads, when, with hearts overflowing with joy, 



320 A MISSIONARY OUTFIT. 

they went singing on their way homeward, to meet friends 
and relatives they never expected to see again. 

Liberating seven hundred slaves that were on their way 
down the Nile, he at last reached Souakim, and took ship 
for Suez. Narrowly escaping wreck on the voyage, he at 
length arrived safely at Cairo, and laid his report before 
the khedive, and also his complaint and charges against 
Abou Saood. 

In conclusion, he states what he has done, and says that 
if the khedive will now do his duty, the slave trade, by way 
of the Nile, will be sujDpressed, civilization extended to the 
equator, and the whole vast rich and populous country be 
opened to commerce and the missionary. Speaking of the 
latter, he says that devotional exercises he may introduce 
should be chiefly musical, and all psalms should be set to 
lively tunes, which the natives would learn readily. More- 
over, the missionary should have a never-failing supply of 
beads, copper rods, brass rings for arms, fingers and ears, 
gaudy cotton handkerchiefs, red or blue blankets, zinc, 
mirrors, red cotton shirts, to give his j)arishioners, and ex- 
pect nothing in return, and he would be considered a great 
man, whose opinion w^ould carry considerable weight, pro- 
vided he only spoke of subjects which he thorpughly un- 
derstood. He should have also a knowledge of agriculture, 
and carry with him seeds, tools and implements of labor. 

He and Stanley seem to have views very similar con- 
cerning missionary labors, and though they are not exactly 
of the orthodox kind, they evidently are very practical. 

In his official report of the conduct of those who shared 
with him the dangers and responsibilities of the expedition, 
he thus speaks of his noble wife : " Lastly, I must ac- 
knowledge the able assistance that I have received, in com- 
mon with every person connected with the expedition, from 
Hiy wife, who cared for the sick when we were without a 



A HANDSOME TRIBUTE. 821 

medical man, and whose gentle aid brought comfort to 
many whose strength might otherwise have failed. In 
moments of doubt and anxiety she was always a thought- 
ful aud wise counselor, and much of my success, through 
long years passed in Africa, is due to my devoted com- 
panion." 

A handsome, well-deserved tribute to the wife who, in 
danger, sickness and battle, had ever stood by him with the 
same fearless, devoted heart. He retired from his arduous 
work feeling that he had opened a great future to Africa. 
17 



CHAPTER XX. 



CAMKRON 3 EXPEDITION— ITS OEIGIN— CHANGE OF LEADERS— DIFFICULTIES AT THE OUTSET-v. 
START— A TALL AND MANLY RACE— NAKED SAVAGES— NEWS FROM LIVINGSTONE— A METHU- 
SELAH—THE COUNTRY IMPROVED- UNYANYEMBE REACHED— OCCUPIES STANLEY'S HOUSE— A 
SLAVE AUCTION — SICKNESS AND DISCOURAGEMENTS — A STUNNING BLOW — LIVINGSTONE DEAD— 
DEATH OF DILLON— DESPONDENT THOUGHTS— A DESPERATE RESOLVE— CROSSING THE LUGUN- 
GWA— UJIJI. 



THE English government having refused to send out 
an expedition in search of Livingstone, the Royal 
Geographical Society, of London, determined to dispatch 
one, and raised the money necessary to carry it out by 
subscription. But, before it started, the news that Stanley 
had discovered him having been received, the commander 
of it, Lieutenant Dawson, resigned. Another officer was 
put in his place, but he also resigned. The position was 
tlien given to Oswald Livingstone, son of the great ex- 
plorer. But, before the expedition was ready to start, he 
also withdrew, and the whole attempt to reach Livingstone 
was abandoned. At length it was resolved to use what 
remained of the subscriptions to the expedition to organize 
another, which should proceed to Dr. Livingstone, and 
place itself at his disposal, to be used by him in completing 
the great work of exploration to which he had been de- 
voted for the last six or seven years. To the command of 
this, Lieutenant Cameron was appointed. Taking Dr. 
Dillon with him as surgeon, he left England on the last 
day of November, 1872 ; but, retarded by vexatious delays 
and sickness, he did not start inland from Zanzibar till 

February of the next year. 

• 322 



CAMERON S EXPEDITION. 323 

Owing to the faithlessness of a man named Bombay^ 
who had been of great service to Speke, in his expedition 
into Central Africa, the thirty good men and true, which 
he promised to obtain for him, turned out to be the off- 
scourings of the place. Engaging a few more men as 
carriers, and buying six dozen donkeys, he left Zanzibar 
on the 2d of February, 1873, and set sail for Bagomayo, 
where he arrived the same afternoon. This, as we have 
seen, is the principal point of departure for caravans to 
Unyanyembe and the countries beyond. He returned to 
Zanzibar on the 11th, to receive the rest of the stores de- 
signed for the expedition, wdiich had just arrived from 
England, and where Lieutenant Murphy joined him. 

It is needless to go over the delays and troubles that 
followed in getting away, but the little caravan was finally 
off on the route which Stanley had taken just before Mur- 
phy was sick with the fever, and had to be carried by four 
men. There had been many desertions, and vexatious 
delays, and changes ; but the exjDcdition, at this time, be- 
sides Cameron, Dillon, and Murphy, and Issa, the store- 
keeper, consisted of thirty-five azkari, with Bombay an 
commander, a hundred and ninety-two pagasi or carriers,* 
six servants and three boys — in all, one hundred and fdjrty, 
besides several women and slaves, which some of the men 
took along. There was also twenty-two donkeys and three 
dogs, so that it made quite an imposing little caravan. 
Cameron and Dillon had each a double-barreled rifle, be- 
sides revolvers and a double-barreled fowling-piece, which 
were carried by the men. Murphy also had tw^o double- 
barreled guns. The men had arms of some kind, revolvers 
or muskets, except a few, who carried spears and bows and 
arrows. Of the three dogs, Leo, a large, singular-looking 
dog — Cameron's special favorite — was admired much by 
the natives. 



324 DIFFICULTIES AT THE OUTSET. 

To illustrate the difficulties, and vexations, and delays 
inseparable from traveling in Africa, it is necessary only 
to state that while we chronicle the start here on the 30th 
of May, the exj)edition had really been organized, and the 
men under pay, for a whole month. And even now in 
starting there was a wrangle respecting the duties of each> 
not so much because of the burdens being unequal to be 
carried, but because of the distinctions in rank they indi- 
cated. 

Through rocky gorges, over steep mountains, the long 
caravan now wound its slow way, pressing on toward 
Ujiji, in the neighborhood of which Stanley had left Liv- 
ingstone, and where they expected to find him. The 
region was not new, for Burton, and Speke, and Stanley 
had been there before, yet the progress was slow and diffi- 
cult — perhaps as slow and difficult as fifteen years before 
when some of these explorers first traversed it. There had 
been desertions and accretions, till now, at the end of the 
month, the caravan was over five hundred strong — destined, 
alas ! to a terrible diminution in the coming months. It 
passed through various tribes, the different characteristics 
''of which were not very noticeable, till they came to the Wa- 
dingo tribe, a tall and manly race, despising all such refine- 
ments of civilization as clothing — the men and many of 
the women being stark naked, with the exception, j)erhaps, 
of a single string of beads around the neck or wrist. One 
would liardly think it worth while, in speaking of cloth- 
ing, to guard himself against the charge of misrepresent- 
ing, or of using unguarded language in asserting that the 
natives had no clothing, by saying " with the exception of 
a string of beads around the neck or wrist." 

The progress was slow and toilsome, beset with innumer- 
able difficulties, but Cameron was borne up with the thought 
that he was nearing the brave Livingstone every day, and 



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NEWS OF LIVINGSTONE. 327 

would soon be with liim in prosecuting the great discove- 
ries on the immense' water plateau of Central Africa. 
Through drenching rains, matted swamps, across wide 
rivers and over rugged mountains, accompanied by knavish, 
trustless men, met at every step by extortionate and thiev- 
ing or hostile tribes, he, at last, camped at Kanyenze, the 
largest and most ancient of all the districts in Ugogo; where 
he received a visit from a grandson of Magomba, the 
head chief, who invited him to his grandfather's home. 
But what was more important, he met here a caravan bound 
to the sea-coast, from which he received the cheering infor- 
mation that Livingstone was alive and well, though they 
could not tell his exact whereabouts. 

Moving on to Kanyenze he found a camp already pro- 
vided for him, built by some of the many caravans that 
pass backward and forward from the interior to the coast. 
Cameron found Magomba still living, who was the chief in 
power when Burton passed there, in 1857. He was said 
by his subjects to be over three hundred years old, and to 
be cutting his fourth set of teeth. "Whether this extraor- 
dinary story be true or. not, it was evident he was over a 
century old, if one could judge by his grandchildren, who 
were gray and grizzled. Livingstone mentions a similar 
case, showing the longevity of the African race, the man 
being, he said, at least one hundred and thirty years old. 

He remained here several days, and then passed on to 
Khoko, the largest settlement he had yet seen. Noting the 
peculiar customs of the people, he passed on to Mgunda 
Mkali, or hot field, which lay between him and Unyan- 
yembe, paying tribute to every tribe through whose terri- 
tory he took his caravan. This last country was only just 
beginning to be cleared when Burton and Speke passed 
through it, but now there were large tracts of cultivation. 
He had heard that Dr. Livingstone had come to Unyan- 



328 staxl::y axd livixgstone's house. 

yembe, but here he was informed by an Arab caravan that 
the report was untrue. Still the men were encouraged at 
finding themselves safely through the first part of their 
journey. The villages that he passed for the next few days 
were clean and well-built, for savages. Through tracts of 
jungle and prairie the caravan now toiled on, the monotony 
occasionally relieved by a snake in camp, or the desertion 
of a man, or the news that Mirambo, a warlike chief, was 
still holding his own against the surrounding tribes. At 
last, in the forepart of August, he reached Unyanyembe. 
The governor conducted him to a house which he had for- 
merly lent to Stanley and Livingstone. He occupied the very 
rooms where, a short time before, these intrepid travelers 
had sat and talked over the field of future explorations and 
the future of Africa. The Arabs live in great comfort 
here, occupying large and comfortable houses, surrounded 
with gardens and fields, but still troubled, as they were when 
Stanley passed through it, by the ravages of Mirambo. 
Here a part of the men, who had been engaged only to this 
point, were paid off and departed for Zanzibar. Cameron 
exjiected to hear from Livingstone at this point and receive 
orders to proceed to the Victoria Nyanza, but was disap- 
pointed. A large auction was held while he was here, to 
sell the effects of an Arab chieftain who had been killed in 
battle. After the sale of various articles the slaves were 
put up. They were led around and. made to show their 
teeth, to cough and run, and exhibit their dexterity. They 
were all semi-domestic, and, hence, brought high prices — 
one woman, a good cook, fetching $200, while the men 
ranged from $40 to $"^'0. Cameron stayed here from the 
1st of August to the latter part of October, he or some of 
iiis party being down, most of the time, with fever or some 
other African disease. He could hear no tidings from 
IJLvingstone, except that he was somewhere ahead. Came- 



AN UNPLEASANT SITUATION. 320 

ron was anxious to proceed at once, but we find at the last 
moment the following entry in liis journal, which shows 
the unpleasantness of the situation. Writing on August 
23d, Dillon, who was usually blessed with buoyant spirits, 
commenced his letter : 

" Now for a dismal tale of woe ! On or about (none of 
us know the date correctly) August 13th, Cameron felt 
seedy. I never felt better, ditto Murphy. In the evening 
we felt seedy. I felt determined not to be sick. ^ I will 
eat dinner ; I'll not go to bed.' Murphy was between the 
blankets already. I did manage some dinner ; but shakes 
enough to bring an ordinary house down came on, and I 
had to turn in. For the next four or five days, our diet 
was water or milk. Not a soul to look after us. The ser- 
vants knew not what to do. We got up when we liked, 
and walked out. We knew that we felt giddy ; that our 
legs would scarcely support us. I used to pay a visit to 
Cameron, and he used to come in • to me to make com- 
plaints. One day he said, ^ the fellows have regularly 
blocked me in — I have no room to stir. The worst of it 
is, one of the legs of the grand piano is always on my head, 
and peoj)le are strumming away on it all day. It's all 
drawing-room furniture that they have blocked me in 
with.' I was under the impression that my bed was on 
top of a lot of ammunition paniers, and I told Murphy I 
was sorry I could not get away sooner, to call on him ; but 
I had the king of Uganda stopping with me, and I must 
be civil to him, as we should shortly be in his country. 
Murphy pretty well dozed his fever off, but I never went 
to sleej) from beginning to end. We all got well on the 
same day, about, I suppose, the fifth (of the fever), and 
laughed heartily at each other's confidences. The Arabs 
sent every day to know how we were, or called themselves, 
bringing sweet limes, pomegranates or custard apples. 



330 A LUDICROUS SIGHT. 

" September 8th.. — We have had a second dose of the 
beastly, excuse the word, fever. On the morning of the 
third day of our attack (about the seventh of Cameron's), 
I saw Murphy get up and steer for the open end of the 
room, staggering as he went, and endeavoring to get clear 
of a lot of ammunition which had been«em]3tied from the 
j^aniers, but he failed to keep in the right line ; apparently 
seeing he must go on to the ^ rock ahead,' he staggered 
slower and slower, taking very short steps, till, coming in 
. contact with a heap of emjDty cartridges, he gradually sub- 
sided on the toj_3 of them, with a groan, on his hands and 
knees. The sight appeared to me to be so ludicrous — a 
big, powerful fellow not being able to get out of a room 
without a door or fourth wall — that I laughed as loud as 
my j)rostrate condition would admit of. This had the 
effect of bringing him to his senses, and he struggled to 
his feet and balanced himself out. The whole thing must 
have been seen to have been appreciated, and by one in a 
similar state of helplessness as the victim. You can't 
imagine how this fever prostrates one. A slight headache 
is felt, one feels that one must lie down, though one does 
not feel ill. The next morning one walks, or tries to walk, 
across the room ; one finds that one must allow one's body 
to go wherever one's foot chooses to place itself, and a very 
eccentric course the poor body has to take sometimes in 
consequence. Drink ! drink ! drink ! cold water, milk, 
tea — anything. Bale it out of a bucket, or drink it out 
of the spout of the tea-jDot." 

Writing himself, on September 20th, with his troubles 
uppermost in his mind, he said : 

"I am very savage just at this moment; I have been 
trying for two days to get enough men together to form a 
camp a short way out, in order to see all right for march- 
ing, and all the pagosi declare they are afraid. I think I 



STANLEY BLIND. 831 

am past the fever here, now ; as, although I have had it 
six times, the last attacks have been getting lighter, and 
the only thing bothering me now is my right eye, which is 
a good deal inflamed, but I think is getting better. It was 
caused by the constant glare and dust round the house. 

*' September 30tli. — Here I ana still, trying to make a 
preliminary start, but not one of my pagosi will come in ; 
at least, I can't get more than a dozen together out of one 
hundred and thirty I have engaged, and I can't manage 
much with them. I am still greatly bothered with my 
eye, as, if I use the other much, it brings on pain. 

" October 14th. — Just able to try and write again, but I 
have been quite blind, and very bad with fever since my 
last words. I have been more pulled down by the latter 
than any I have had before, and was feeling very much as 
if I should like to be with you all for a day or two. I am 
in great hopes of getting out of here soon, now. Dillon is 
more alive, and growling at not getting away. I am 
writing this bit by bit, as my eyes allow me, so don't 
expect much sense or coherence in this epistle." 

In a letter to Mr. Clements Markham, he wrote : 

" September 15th. — We have all been down with fever 
since we have been here, but are now pulling round again. 
It is a great nuisance, as the fever makes me lose my 
lunars ; I tried directly I was able to t/milc to get some, 
but I was so shaky and dazed it was utterly impossible. 

"Since I wrote the foregoing I have been down with 
fever, but am now, thank God, clear of it. We are wait- 
ing for a few pagosi, and putting our donkeys' saddle-bags 
to rights, prior to starting for Ujiji,* which I find can be 
reached in about twenty -two marches, or about thirty days. 
I am afraid Dillon must go back, as he is getting quite 
blind; in fact, the last day or two he has been quite 
unable to read or write — one eye was affected first, and 



332 DILLON TO RETURN. 

now the other is going; he ought, decidedly, in my 
opinion, to go back, and I have strongly advised him so 
to do. 

" September 20tli. — It is something dreadful, this waiting 
here. Here is the 20tli of September, and I am still 
bothered by the lack of pagosi ; if I had been w^ell, we 
should have been away weeks ago; but out of forty-five days 
I have had one fever of eight days, one of seven, one of five^ 
one of four, and am now just getting well of a violent 
attack of headache which lasted for five days, and of course 
do not feel particularly bright, so I have only had sixteen 
days. Dillon is much better, and has decided to go on ; 
he is not all right yet, though. 

" September 26th and 27th. — Still detained by lack of 
pagosi, but I hope to be off* in about ten days or so. I 
have just had another attack of fever, and this is the first 
day I have been able to do anything. Dillon seems to 
have fever every other day nearly, but not very violently ; 
but what I am most afraid of is his sight. He has quite 
lost the use of his left eye, and has occasional symptoms in 
the right. It is atony of the optic nerve ; if he gets quite 
blind further on, I do not see my way of sending him 
back ; in fact, it would be impossible for the greater por- 
tion of our route, and he himself says getting back to a 
temperate climate would be the only thing to do him 
good. 

" September 29th. — Yesterday, by dint of great labor I 
got together sixteen pagosi at about 2 P. M., and to-day 
I hear they are all collected at Taborah, and afraid to go 
on, and I am here witli my tent cleared out and not a soul 
to move a thing. I shall go mad soon, if this state of 
affairs continues. I am thinking of going on by myself as 
light as I can, if I can get enough of the pagosi I have 
engaged, and making a drive some how." 



STARTLING NEWS. 335 

The above is sufficient to show how constantly they were 
ill. Bu^ something worse than delay or fever now oc- 
curred. The object of the whole expedition had disap- 
peared forever. Cameron jots down in his journal : " A 
sad and mournful day now arrived.'' As he was lying on 
his sick-bed, weak and languid from his repeated attacks 
of fever, his head dizzy with whirling thoughts of home 
and its loved ones far away, and with the thick-coming 
fancies of what might yet be in store for him, his servant 
came running into his tent witli a letter in his hand. 
Snatching it from him, he asked where it came from. 
His only reply was, " some man bring him." Tearing it 
open, he read, with a strange, stunned feeling, the following 
, letter : 

"'Ukhonongo, October, 1873. 
"^Sie: 

" * We have heard, in the month of August, that 
you have started from Zanzibar for Unyanyembe, and again 
and again, lately, we have heard of your arrival. Your father 
died of disease, beyond the country of Bisa, but we have 
carried the corpse with us. Ten of our soldiers are lost 
and some have died. Our hunger presses us to ask you 
for some clothes to buy provisions for our soldiers, and we 
should have an answer, that when we shall enter there shall 
be firing guns or not, and if you permit us to fire guns, 
then send some powder. We have wrote these few words 
in place of Sultan or King Albowra. 

"*The writer, Jacob Waineight, 
" * Dr. Livingstone's Expedition.' 

" Being half blind, it was with some difficulty that I 
deciphered the writing, and then failing to attach any 
definite meaning to it, I went to Dillon. His brain was in 
much the same state of confusion from fever as mine, and 



336 ARRIVAL OF LIVINGSTOXE's BODY. 

we read it again together, each having the same vague idea 
— ^ Could it be our own father w^ho was dead/ 

'' It was not until the bearer of the letter, Chum a, Liv- 
ingstone's faithful follower, was brought to us that we fully 
comprehended what we had been reading. The writer had 
naturally supposed that the doctor's son was the leader of 
the relief expedition. We immediately sent supplies for 
the pressing needs of the caravan, and dispatched a mes- 
senger to the coast announcing Dr. Livingstone's death. 

" On the arrival of the body, a few days later. Said ibn 
Salim and other chiefs, and the principal Arabs, without 
exception, showed their respect to Livingstone's memory 
by attending the reception of the corpse, which they ar- 
ranged with such honors as they were able. The askari. 
were drawn up in front of the house in two lines, between 
which the men bearing the body passed ; and as the body 
entered, the colors, which, contrary to our usual custom, 
had not been hoisted tl^at morning, were shown half-mast 
high. 

" Susi, on whom the command had devolved on the 
death of Livingstone, brought a couple of boxes belonging 
to him, and his guns and instruments. He also stated that 
a box containing books had been left at LTjiji, and that 
shortly before his death, the doctor had particularly desired 
that they should be fetched and conveyed to the coast. 

" Dr. Livingstone's death, as far as could be ascertained 
from the description given by his men, occurred rather to 
the westward of the place marked in the map published 
in ' Livingstone's Last Journal.' He had been suffering 
from acute dysentery for some time, but his active mind 
did not jDcrmit him to remain still and rest. Had he done 
so for a week or two after his first attack, it was the opinion 
of Dr. Dillon, upon reading the last few pages of his jour- 
nal, that he would most probably have recovered. 



EXPEDITION BREAKING UP. 339 

" It is not for me here to speak of Livingstone, his life 
and death. The appreciation of a whole nation — nay, 
more, of the whole civilized world, will testify to succeed- 
ing generations that he was one of the world's heroes. 

" And that title was never won by greater patience, self- 
denial and true courage, than that shown by David Living- 
stone. 

"It was now necessary to consider what course they 
had better pursue, since he, to whom they were to have 
looked for guidance, was taken away from them. 

"Murphy resigned his position, and announced his 
intention of returning to the coast, on the ground that the 
work of the expedition was now completed, and that 
nothing further remained for us to do. 

" Dillon and Cameron decided upon proceeding to Ujiji, 
and securing that box to which Livingstone had referred 
with almost his last breath, and after having safely dis- 
patched it to the coast, to push on toward Nyangwe to 
endeavor to follow up the doctor's explorations. 

" They now redoubled their exertions to get away, and 
equipped Susi and his companions for the march to 
Bagomayo. But, unhappily, Dillon and he were not 
destined to go forward together, for a few days prior to 
the time fixed for their departure, Dillon was attacked 
with inflammation of the bowels, and much against his 
wish, felt constrained to return to the coast, as that seemed 
the only course which gave hope of recovery." 

Difficulties crowded at this time very heavily about our 
bold explorer. The object for which the whole expedition 
was organized could, not now be secured. He cculd only 
try to carry out the purpose as he understood it of Dr, 
Livingstone. It was a difficult position in which he found 
himself, as the plan and design of the expedition having 
come to nought, he must return with nothing done or take the 



340 "westward ho!'* 

responsibility of attempting what might prove a more dis- 
astrous failure still. Besides, not expecting to go beyond 
this great lacustrine region of Central Africa, he had made 
no arrangei^ients for any farther explorations. But still 
lie determined that a movement set on foot by the Royal 
Geographical Society, of London, should not end in nothing 
done, and he resolved to move westward and complete, as far 
as possible, Livingstone's work, and, perhaps, push on to the 
Atlantic coast. His whole force was now reduced to about 
one hundred men ; yet, with these, encouraged by the suc- 
cesses of Livingstone and Stanley, he determined to pro- 
ceed. It was a condition which, in its sadness, discourage- 
ment, and the fearful forebodings it conjured up, might 
well appall the stoutest heart. It was in these circumstances 
that Cameron showed that he was worthy to stand beside 
Livingstone and Stanley, as one of the most intrepid ex- 
plorers of this or of any age. In very simple language, 
without any attempt at dramatic effect, and yet, in its very 
simplicity, dramatic in the highest sense, he says : "On the 
9th of November, Livingstone's caravan, acconipanied by 
Dillon and Murphy, started for the coast, whilst my cry 
was 'westward ho !' " 

While trying to enlist men to compose the force, with 
which he now proposed to continue his march, and carry 
out a j)roject not at all contemplated beforehand, he re- 
ceived another shock by the arrival of a messenger, an- 
nouncing the death of Dillon, his physician, friend and 
mainstay. In the delirium of the African fever — some fire- 
arms having been left near him — he seized a pistol, and 
placing the muzzle to his head, blew out his brains. Thus, 
discouragements, one after another, were piled on him to 
drive him back. Not only was the main object of the 
expedition defeated, but his physician, on whom he de- 
pended, was dead, and taken from him under circum- 



Dillon's grave. 341 

stances calculated to throw a gloom over all liis plans. 
Not only was he now left alone in the heart of Africa, but 
he himself was under the influence of this same deadly 
fever, which might end just as tragically. No wonder, in 
the sudden despondency produced by this irreparable loss, 
lie said : " The day on which I received this news was the 
saddest of my life. I had lost one of the best and truest of 
my old messmates and friends ; one whose com23anionship, 
during the many weary hours of travel and suffering, had 
helped to cheer and lessen the difficulties and vexations by 
which we were so frequently beset. And the shock so 
stunned me, in my enfeebled state, that for some days I 
appear to have existed almost in a dream, remembering 
scarcely anything of the march to Konongo, and leaving 
my journal a blank." No wonder that he felt so prostrated 
and bewildered. The wonder is, that, now left alone, the 
only white man in the j^arty — the expedition, so far as ac- 
complishing the object, being a failure — exhausted by 
sickness, and depressed by the loss of his one dear friend — 
he did not wheel about and return to Zanzibar, his starting 
point, instead of turning his face, all alone, to the untrod- 
den wilderness that lay between him and the unknown to 
which he was hastening. 

After much delay and troubles with his men, he at 
length started forward, and soon came to the spot where 
poor Dillon died. He tried in vain to find where he was 
buried, in order to put some rude monument over his 
grave. He found, at last, that he had been buried in a 
jungle, to keep his grave from being desecrated, and there 
the true-hearted, brave physician rests to-day — adding one 
more to the number of those who have sacrificed their 
lives in the attempt to solve the mystery of the dark 
continent. 

It was now December, and Cameron's journal between 



342 REACHES UJIJI. 

this and Ujiji is Very similar to that of Stanley, as they 
passed over nearly the same district of country. He took 
a different road, however, from Stanley, striking westward 
between his route and the direct one through Mirambo's 
country. 

He remained some time at a village named Hinnone, 
waiting to be able to steer clear of Mirambo, who was 
carrying on war, as usual, with the native tribes. Some- 
times he was sick, sometimes he went hunting, and would 
fetch in a gazelle or zebra. He jots down : " Christmas- 
day passed very miserably. A heavy rain commenced 
the day, flooding the whole village— the ditch and bank 
round my tent were washed away, and I had over six 
inches of water inside it." He describes the huts and 
modes of life of the inhabitants, manner of dressing the 
hair by the women, etc. Now and then a ludicrous scene 
broke the monotony of his dismal journey. One day he 
was greatly amused by seeing one of his guides, w^io had 
got possession of an umbrella, strutting along under it w^ith 
a pompous air. " He kept it open the whole day," he 
says, " continually spinning it round and round in a most 
ludicrous manner; and when we came to a jungle, he 
added to the absurdity of his apjDcarance by taking off his 
only article of clothing — his loin-cloth — and placing it on 
his head, after having carefully folded it. The sight of a 
naked negro w^alking under an umbrella was too much for 
my gravity, and I fairly exploded with laughter." Pass- 
ing village after village made desolate by the slave-traders, 
he kept on, crossing river after river — among others the 
Lugungwa, a beautiful stream, which had cut a channel 
fifty feet deep in the soft sandstone, and not more than 
eight feet wdde at the top. At length he came in sight of 
the great inland sea of Tanganika. He had finally 
reached Ujiji. His first inquiries were for Dr. Living- 




CROSSING THE LUGUNGWA RIVER. 



\ 



ARRIVAL AT UJIJI. C45 

stone's papers, which \m found safe in the hands of one of 
the chief men of the place. 

He arrived at Ujiji in February and remained there till 
March, when he set out on a long cruise around Lake 
Tangauika, which continued till May. With the excep- 
tion of the description of the customs and manners of some 
of the tribes that live on its shores, his journal is of more 
value to the geographer than to the general reader. 

18 



CHAPTER XXI. 

KAMERON rUSHES C^ TO THE LUALABA, AND KESOLVES TO FOLLOW IT TO THE SEA— IT HAS KO 
CONNECTION WITH THE NILE SYSTEM— NO CANOES TO BE HAD— TIPO-TIPO— HANDSOME WOMEN 
— INQUISrriVENESS OF THE WOMEN — STOPPED BY A RUSE— INTERVIEW WITH KING KASONGO — 
RESOLVES TO VISIT SOME CURIOUS LAKES— ATTACKED BY THE NATH'ES- CONTRACTS WITH A 
SLAVE-TRADER TO TAKE HIM TO THE COAST— EXPLORATIONS OF LAKES— HOUSES BUILT IN THE 
LAKES— DESCRIPTION OF KASONGO AND HIS CHARACTER AND HABITS— HIS HAREM— THE RULES 
THAT GOVERN IT— THE RELIGION OF THE COUNTRY— A CURIOUS BRIDAL CEREMONY— FLOATING 
ISLANDS— THE CONGO ROUTE ABANDONED. 

/""CAMERON now resolved to push on to the Lualaba, 
y^^ and thence follow the Congo down to the sea. His 
fif'st objective point was Nyangwe, where he expected to 
obtain canoes for the voyage. He describes the natives he 
met on this route, never traveled by any white man before 
but Livingstone. He speaks especially of Manyema, and 
says the huts were ranged in long streets — their bright 
and red walls and sloping roofs differing from those hither- 
to met with. And in the middle of the street were ' 
huts, palm-trees and granaries. 

On the 1st of August he reached the Lualaba, having 
been two months on the road. Where he struck the river 
it was fully a mile wide, dotted with islands and flowing in 
a broad, turbid current, at the rate of three or four knots 
an hour. The next day he floated down to Nyangwe. 
Jumping ashore, he entered the settlement alone, much to 
the astonishment of the natives, to whom this sudden 
appearance of a solitary white man seemed like an ap- 
parition. 

The great question to be solved now was, could he trace 
this river to the sea. No white man but Livingstone had 

346 



DIFFICULTIES ABOUT CANOES. 349 

ever penetrated to this remote spot before ; and whether he 
should go farther or not depended, in the first place, whether 
he could get canoes and men to work them, who would 
consent to accompany him. That the Lualaba had no con- 
nection with the Nile system, was now apparent as noon- 
day, independent of the former discussions as to the mean 
heights of this stream and the Nile. Cameron calculated 
that the volume of water passing Nyangwe was one hun- 
dred and twenty-three thousand cubic feet per second, even 
in the dry season, which is five times greater than that of 
tho Nile at Gondokoro, Baker's extreme point of naviga- 
tion of the river, where it was only twenty-one thousand 
five hundred feet per second. This settled the fact beyond 
all controversy, that the Lualaba had nothing to do with 
the Nile. It settled, also, another fact, that such a stream 
now evidently on the western slope, could have no connec- 
tion with any other river flowing west except with the 
Amazon of Africa, the Congo. The two must constitute 
one river. 

After Cameron had remained a fortnight at Nyangwe, 
one of the expeditions that had been off after slaves, re- 
turned. The men composing it owned the canoes that 
Mr. Cameron wanted, and he immediately entered into 
negotiations with them for their purchase, but they would 
listen to no offers for them. He now began to despair, 
when, one day, while sitting listlessly in front of his hut, 
he heard the sound of firearms, and knew at once that 
another marauding party was returning. It proved to be 
the advance-guard of Tipo-tipo, whose camp was near a 
lake called Sankora. Two days after Tipo-tipo himself 
arrived. 

" He was a good-looking man," Cameron says, " and the 
greatest dandy I had seen among the traders. Notwith- 
standing he was perfectly black, he \vas a thorough Arab 



350 INQUISITIVE WOMEN. 

in his ideas and manners." He advised Cameron to re- 
turn with him to his camp, where he could easily procure 
guides to Lake Sankora. So, on the 26th of August, he 
commenced getting his party over the river, j)reparatory 
to start with Tipo-tipo for the latter's camp. 

Having crossed with a portion of his men and baggage, 
he left the everlasting Bombay of Stanley to bring over 
the rest with the stores. But Bombay, true to his instincts 
and character, had returned to the village to have a big 
drunk. Cameron, however, determined to go on to Tipo- 
tipo's camp, and did, though on the way he had such an 
attack of fever that he reeled like a drunken man and 
could scarcely drag one foot after another, they having be- 
come so swollen and blistered that he had to cut open his 
boots to get relief. 

They at last encamped two miles from Buzzuna's village, 
a friend and ally of Tipo-tipo. This chiefs with a half a 
dozen wives, came to stay near him whil6 he remained, and 
visited him frequently, bringing a new wife each time. 
Cameron says : ** They were the handsomest women I had 
seen in Africa, and, in addition to their kilts of gray cloth, 
wore scarfs of the same material across their breasts." At 
first they were afraid of him, but on the second day all 
ilieir timidity disappeared, and they began to examine him 
vevj curiously. The pictures he showed them soon wearied 
them, and they proceeded to investigate him personally. 
He ytiys: ''They turned up the legs and sleeping-suit 
which I always wore in camp, to discover whether it was 
my face alone that was white." They prosecuted their 
investigations so thoroughly, that he saw, if there was not 
a stop put to it, he would soon be stripped naked, and he 
sent for some beads and shells, and streiving them over the 
ground, seat them scrambling after them, and thus escaped 
their furtijcr scrutiny. Buzzuna, when he came, brought 







iii 

m 



;|;5'|l!iii« 



iii 

I III I 



m;m. 






liiiiiiii 



Ji,v,;ili1liliil;!l!llilll'!i 



IMPOSING COURT CEREMONIES. 353 

with liim a handsomely-carved stool, on which he sat, 
using the lap of one of his wives, seated on the ground, as 
a footstool, on which he planted his feet. 

The next thing " in the programme" was to receive a 
visit from the great chief or king of the district, Kasongo. 
The imposing ceremonies that heralded his approach would 
furnish a good example to the crowned heads of Europe, 
who in nowise differ from these savage negro chieftains in 
their ridiculous pageantry. First, each sub-chief arrived, 
preceded by drummers, while his rank was proclaimed in 
true European style and his position in the coming re« 
ception made known. Then drumming and shouting 
announced the approach of the great man himself. First 
came a half a dozen drummers, then thirty or forty spear- 
men, followed by six women carrying shields, and then his 
negro majesty. A dance followed, and then a talk was 
held, in whibh Cameron informed him that he wanted to 
visit Lake Sankora, through which he believed the Lualaba 
flowed. 

Two days after, he returned the visit, and was thero 
informed that the chief of the territory which he must 
cross to reach the lake had said that " no strangers with 
guns had ever passed through his country and never 
should, without fighting their way.'' Cameron then cast 
about to see if he could not get to the lake without passing 
through his dominions. Having received, as he thought, 
satisfactory information on this point, he, on the 12th of 
September, set out with his guides. From these he ob- 
tained information about two other lakes in which huts 
were built on piles, and still another in which there were 
floating islands covered with inhabitants. 

For several days they journeyed through a fairly-popu- 
lated country, " with large villages of well-built and clean 
huts disposed in long streets with bark-cloth trees planted 



354 ATTACKED 13Y THE XATIVES. 

on each side" — all the streets running east and west. The 
natives seemed friendly, and they traveled on quietly for 
several days ; but this friendly conduct at last changed, 
and Cameron found his road ambushed and arrows thickly 
f.:Iling around him. He learned afterward that he had 
been mistaken for a slave-trader. He finally had to resort 
to retaliation, and after burning one hut and wounding one 
man, was allowed to leave quietly the last village where 
hostilities had been commenced. The next village, how- 
ever, showed the same hostile feeling, and he was compelled 
to kill two or three and wound several more before peaceful 
relations could be established. He at length arrived in 
King Kasongo's dominions, where he found a trader named 
Judali Merikani, who had traveled the country extensively. 
He had seen Livingstone, Speke and Burton. He found 
here, also, a Portuguese trader, but, though he could speak 
Portuguese, he was an old and ugly negro. 

Here, also, he made an agreement with a man named 
Alvez, to conduct him to the Atlantic coast; but as the 
latter said he could not start under a month, Cameron 
resolved to spend the intermediate time — as he could not 
reach Sankora — in exploring the neighboring lake of Mo- 
lieya, in which, it was said, houses were built on piles. 
But, before s^tarting, he visited Kasongo's capital, which 
was about a hundred rods long by thirty wide, and sur- 
rounded by a neat fence of sticks five feet high, in the 
centre of which was his dwelling. He was absent, but his 
chief wife received him courteously, and after many ques- 
tions as to where he came from and what he wanted, made 
him take off his boots and stockings, that she might exam- 
ine his feet. 

After some j)arleying, she consented to give him a guide 
to Lake Moheya. He started on the 30th of October, and 
uame in sight of the lake two days after, and in it found 



EXPLORING SOME CURIOUS LAKES. o55 

three villages built on piles, besides several detached huts 
scattered over its surface. He could get no canoes to visit 
them, and had to be content with a distant view of them 
through his glass. They were built on platforms raised 
about six feet from the water, and resting on piles driven 
into the bed of the lake. Underneath them canoes were 
moored, while men could be seen swimming from hut to 
hut. 

Kasongo not arriving, and his return being uncertain, 
he determined to visit some other curious lakes in this 
region. But, before starting, he gives a description of the 
large district of Urua, which extends from this point to 
Lake Tanganika. This vast territory is governed by King 
Kasongo. He thus speaks of him and his religion : 

" Kasongo, or the chief for the time being, arrogates to 
himself divine honors and power, and pretends to abstain 
from food for days without feeling its necessity ; and inde^id 
declares, that as a god he is altogether above requiring 
food, and only eats, drinks and smokes for the pleasure it 
affords him. 

" In addition to his chief wife and the harem maintainrd 
in his private inclosure, he boasts that he exercises a right 
to any woman who may please his fancy when on his jour- 
neys about the country; and if any becomes enceinte, \ie 
gives them a monkey-skin for the child to wear, if a male, 
as this coufers a right to live by taking provisiors, 
cloth, etc., from any one, not of the royal blood. 

" Into the inclosure of his harem no male but himself is 
allowed between sunset and sunrise, on pain of death or 
mutilation ; and even if one of the harem should give birth 
^0 a male child during the night, the mother and infant 
are bundled out immediately. 

" His principal wife and the four or five ranking next to 
her, are all of royal blood, being either his sisters or first 



356 KASONGO'S HAREM. 

cousins ; and amongst his harem are to be found his step- 
mothers, aunts, sisters, nieces, cousins, and, still more hor- 
rible, his own children. 

" As might be expected from such an example, morals 
are very lax throughout the country, and wives are not 
thought badly of for being unfaithful ; the worst they may 
expect being severe chastisement from the injured husband. 
But he never uses excessive violence, for fear of injuring a 
valuable piece of household furniture. 

" When Kasongo sleeps at home, his bed-room furniture 
consists of members of his harem. Some on hands and 
knees form a couch with their backs, and others lying flat 
on the ground, provide a soft carpet. 

" It is the rule for all Warna to light their fires them- 
selves and cook their own food, Kasongo being the only 
one exempt from this observance ; but should either of the 
men appointed to do this service for him,, by any chance 
be absent, he then performs these duties himself. 

" No Warna allows others to witness their eating or 
drinking, being doubly particular with regard to members 
of the opposite sex ; and on pombe being offered, I have 
frequently seen them request that a cloth might be held 
up to hide them whilst drinking. 

" Their religion is principally a mixture of fetish and 
idolatry. All villages have devil-huts and idols before 
w^hich offerings of pombe, grain and meat are placed, and 
almost every man wears a small figure round his neck or 
arm. Many magicians also move about with idols, which 
they pretend to consult for the benefit of their clients; 
and some being clever ventriloquists, manage to drive a 
flourishing business. 

"But the great centre of their religion is an idol named 
Kunque a Banza, which is supposed to represent the 
founder of Kasongo's family, and to be all-powerful for 



STRANGE BKIDAL CEREMONY. 357 

good or evil. This idol is kept in a hut situated in a 
clearing amidst a dense jungle, and always has a sister of 
the reigning chief as a wife, who is known by the title of 
Mwali a Panga. Kound the jungle live a number of 
priests, wdio guard the sacred grove from all profane in- 
truders, and receive offerings for the idol, and also a large 
portion of the tribute j)sid to Kasongo. But, although 
they hold this official position, and are thus intimately 
connected w^ith all the rights and ceremonies pertaining to 
the deity, they are not permitted to set eyes upon the idol 
itself, that privilege being reserved for its wife and the 
reigning sovereign, who consults it on momentous occa- 
sions, and makes offerings to it upon his accession, and 
after gaining any great victory over his adversaries. Not- 
withstanding my efforts, I could not discover the exact 
position of this idol's habitation, but am perfectly convinced 
of its existence, as all the accounts I received were pre- 
cisely similar on all material points." 

As there appeared no prospect of Kasongo's return, 
Cameron asked the queen for guides to visit Lake Kasali, 
that he had heard of She promised to do so, but kept 
deferring taking any steps in the matter till he got wearied 
out, and securing a guide himself, started off. 

Arriving at a village on the way, he w^itnessed a curious 
bridal ceremony. A head man and a niece of the chief 
were to be married. The first day of the ceremony was 
devoted to dancing, in which yells, and shouts, and rude 
music made a continual din from morning till night. The 
next day the bridegroom danced alone for an hour, when a 
circle was formed, and the bride, a child nine years old, 
was brought in on the shoulders of a woman and given 
some tobacco and beads by the bridegroom. " After this 
ceremony was concluded, the bride was set down and 
danced with the bridegroom, going through the most ob- 



358 FLOATING ISLANDS. 

scene gestures for about ten minutes, when he picked her 
up, and tucking her under his arms, walked her off to his 
hut." The dancing and yelling continued, and was still 
going on when Cameron left next day. 

He at length came to a village in sight of the lake, but 
there the wife of the chief forbade his farther advance. 
Tlue husband was with Kasongo, and thither Cameron sent 
messengers to get permission to proceed to the lake, but 
could not obtain one. He sent some of his men, however, 
to it, who reported that a large number of natives lived on 
floating islands in it. These were made of "large pieces 
of tingi-tingi, cut from the masses with which the shore is 
lined.'' On these, logs and brushwood are placed and 
covered with earth. Huts are then built and bananas are 
planted, while goats and poultry are reared upon them. 
They were usually moored to stakes driven into the bed of 
the lake, that are pulled up when the people wish to shift 
their locality, and lines thrown around other stakes', by 
which the heavy mass is slowly towed along. 

When Cameron returned, he asked Alvez when th/iy 
could start. He replied he was all ready whenever Ka- 
songo got back. This was in December, but Kasongo d id 
not return till the end of next month, and even then he 
was delayed by the falsehood and cowardliness of Alvez. 
Kasongo received him with barbaric ceremony, and he 
thought he would now soon be off. But he was destined 
to disappointment. This savage king, who thought him- 
self the greatest man in the world, seemed in no haste to 
lose his novel guest — while he absolutely refused to give 
his consent to let him visit Lake Sankora. 

Cameron was now compelled, with great reluctance, to 
give up his cherished plan to trace the Congo to its mouth, 
and to seek the Atlantic coast in another direction by 
land. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE DEPARTUKE— CHARACTER OP THE CARAVAN— HORRIBLE CEREMONIES AT THE BURIAL OF A 
CHIEF OF UBUA— START OF THE CARAVAN — ITS BAD CONDUCT — JOINED BY A SLAVE-GANG — ITS 
SORROWFUL APPEARANCE— THE CAMPS OF THE CARAVAN— DREARY MARCHING — APPEARANCE 
OF THE COUNTRY— NAKED WOMEN DRESSING THEIR HAIR ELABORATELY— ARRIVAL AT ALVEZ 
VILLAGE— THE LUXURY OF COFFEE, ONIONS AND SOAP— REDUCED STATE OF CAMERON'S MEN- 
REACHES A PORTUGUESE TRADER'S HOUSE— A FESTIVAL— A LASCIVIOUS DANCE— BEAUTIFUL 
SCENERY— INTERVIEW WITH KING KONGO— CAMERON'S SUFFERINGS BEGIN— DESPERATE CON- 
DITION—A FORCED MARCH TO THE SEA WITH A FEW MEN— FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA— HIS W CL- 
COME— HIS DANGEROUS SICKNESS— VISIT TO THE CONSUL AT LOANDA— MEN SENT TO ZANZIBAR— 
HIS RETURN HOME— THE SLAVE TRADE. 

CONSPIRACIES, duplicity and falsehood kept delay- 
ing the departure of the caravan, so that it did not 
get off till the 25th of February. Thus months of val/i- 
able time had been almost entirely wasted. But tivAe 
seems to be of no account in Africa, and the great object 
apparently is not to get a thing donCy but to see how lojtig 
they can keep from doing it. 

The undisciplined, motley caravan to which he intrusted 
himself numbered, at the outset, some seven hundred; but 
before they left the kingdom of Urua, Alvez had collect ,5d 
over one thousand five hundred slaves to take to the coa^jt. 

They marched slowly, and, after three days, reached tiie 
village of Totelo, where another long delay occurred, in 
order to build Kasongo a house, whom they found there. 
During the tedious weeks that followed, Cameron busied 
himself in writing, drawing, taking lunars and working 
them out. Evenings he would stroll out with his gun and 
'shoot guinea-fowl and wood-pigeons to replenish his larder. 
An occasional visit to one of the chiefs varied the monotony. 
He says : 

359 



3G0 SAVAGE FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 

^ "I also busied myself in collecting a vocabulary of Kirna 
and in inquiring into the manners and customs of the 
23eople, and by this means became acquainted with the 
ceremonies observed at the burial of a chief of Urua, which 
are probably unequaled in their savagery. 

" The first proceeding is to divert the course of a stream 
and in its bed to dig an enormous pit, the bottom of which 
is then covered with living women. At one end a woman 
is placed on her hands and knees, and upon her back the 
dead chief, covered with his beads and other treasures, is 
seated, being supported on either side by one of his wives, 
while his second wife sits at his feet. 

" The earth is then shoveled in on them, and all the 
women are buried alive with the exception of the second 
wife. To her custom is more merciful than to her com- 
panions, and grants her the privilege of being killed before 
the huge grave is filled in. This being completed, a 
number of male slaves — sometimes forty - or fifty — are 
slaughtered and their blood poured over the grave ; after 
which the river is allowed to resume its course. 

"Stories were rife, that no fewer than one hundred 
women were buried alive with Bambane, Kasongo's father ; 
but let us hope that this may be an exaggeration. 

" Smaller chiefs are buried with two or three wives, and 
a few slaves only are killed that their blood may be shed 
on the grave; whilst one of the common herd hoB to be 
content with solitary burial, being placed in a sitting pos- 
ture with the right fore-fmger pointing heavenward, just 
level with the top of the mound over his grave." 

When everything at last was ready for a start, Alvez 
insisted on going through a ridiculous ceremony to pro- 
pitiate the sun and guard them against fire on the way. 
The next day, however, June 10th, the caravan took its 
departure, and in its march through the country plundered 



JOINED BY A SLAVE GANG. 361 

every small party tliey met on tlie road, robbing fields of 
their fruit, and seizing everything they desired which fell 
in their way. 

Thus they traveled for four days, crossing four rivers 
on their route. The country during this time had been 
wooded and hilly, but they now came to a succession of 
level plains, indented with the tracks of a herd of ele- 
phants, that Cameron thought must have numbered over 
five hundred animals. They at length reached the village 
of Lunga Mandi, where Cameron was shown the sj)ot on 
which the first white trader had pitched his camp. Leav- 
ing this place, they made a march and came to a village 
where Coimba, who was on a slave-hunt for Kasongo, was 
to join them. 

He came up in the afternoon with fifty-two women, tied 
together in lots of seventeen or eighteen. Some had 
children in their arms, others were far advanced in preg- 
nancy, and all carried heavy loads. They were footsore 
and covered with welts and scars, showing how unmerci- 
fully they had been treated. To obtain them, ten vil- 
lages had been destroyed, containing a population, in all, 
of one thousand ^ye hundred. Alvez claimed a part of 
these slaves, to pay him for waiting, and they were given 
him. 

" With this additional amount of misery '' engrafted on 
the caravan, it next day started forward again. It con- 
sisted of several camps — one composed of Cameron and his 
men ; another of Alvez, with his people and their slaves ; 
a third, of Coimba, his wives and slave-gang; Bastian, a 
fourth ; two independent parties, and two more, made up 
of different tribes, completed the whole. The long pro- 
cession moved on over the diversified country and past 
numerous villages without any exciting iucident to vary 
the tedious monotony of the journey, and came at last to 



862 



A DREAEY MARCH. 



Lupanda, where tlie caravan halted a day. Here Cameron 
had some conversation with the natives, as well as trials of 
physical strength in holding out weights at arm's length, 
in which he excelled them all. Keeping on their south- 
western course, they at length, on the 25th of July, reached 
the territory of Ulunda, a long, narrow strip of country, 
about one hundred miles wide where they entered it. 

The next territory was Lovali, the tedious march to 
which was varied by the escape of a number of slaves. 
Their condition was becoming fearful — the ropes that con- 
fi aed them were eating into their flesh, while some of the 
Momen were carrying dead infants, that had died from 
starvation. Cameron was powerless to help them, and 
c<<uld only rejoice at the escape of any. 

The march of this caravan is hardly worth recording. 
Starting from the Lualaba, and striking south-west through 
a.t'i unknown region, it was reasonable to expect that new 
£iid interesting revelations would be made. On the cou- 
Uarj, the scenery, for the most part, possessed but little in- 
t-srest, being tame compared with that on the eastern slope, 
i\H the traveler approaches the great lake plateau, with its 
f-'^rand mountain ranges. There was not even the excitement 
(if forcing their way through hostile tribes — for the caravan 
\^ras too large to admit of resistance, while its gang of 
slaves closed every village which they passed against them. 
Hence it was a dreary, monotonous march through a coun- 
try without fine scenery — past villages they could not enter 
— without incident, and remarkable only as it revealed a 
vast region of savage life, that formed a part of a great 
continent thickly populated, over which is spread the verv 
blackness of darkness. 

Cameron was now traveling on a Ihie that would fetch 
him to the sea at a rather sharp angle. To state it more 
accurately, he had started at about five degrees south 



LIVINGSTONE S TEACKS. 



36a 



latitude, and on the course he was taking would come out 
nearly fifteen degrees south latitude, or, in round numbers, 
some seven hundred miles south of the point where Stan- 
ley was destined to emerge on the Atlantic. 

Cameron's account of the march through the Lovali 
country is perhaps a fair specimen of the whole route after 
he left the Lualaba till he reached the Portuguese settle- 
ments on the Atlantic. He says : " The first part of the 
Lovali country consisted of a continuation of large, open 
plains, patches of forest and jungle, and many neatly-built 
villages. The huts were square, round and oval, having 
high roofs — in some instances, running into two or three 
pi ants." The marching, he says, was free from any variety. 
P^elays by runaway slaves — old slave-camps on the road — 
" fetishes " of the natives — their curious customs, were the 
only things worth noting. 

On the 28th of August, they came to the principal vil- 
h>ge of the kingdom, named Katende. Here Cameron 
huard of Livingstone, who had passed through this place 
oi:i his journey across Africa, nearly thirty years before. 
It seemed that the principal impression the great explorer 
made on the natives here was that he rode an ox, 

Cameron was now getting reduced very low in the ar- 
ticles which he could use in the way of barter to procure 
what he wanted. 

The caravan, however, pressed steadily on, over enormous 
plains, which are flooded in the wet season, and arrived on 
the 7th of September, at the village of Sha Kembe, the 
last in the district of Lovali, through which they had been 
so long marching. He describes the customs of the natives 
here, and says : " The women devote most of their time to 
dressing their hair, which is a very elaborate performance, 
and when finished is plastered with grease and clay, and 
iuade permanently smooth and shiny." With regard to their 



364 LUXURY OF SOAP. 

attentions to the adornment of other portions of their 
bodies, he says : " That a stick of tape would have clothed 
the female pojDulation of a half a dozen villages." 

Caravans were frequently met, but no news could be ob- 
tained from the outside world. 

At length, in the forepart of October, the caravan arrived 
at the village where Alvez lived, who was received by the in- 
habitants with shouts and yells, and a general drunk followed. 
Here the carriers were ]3aid off, and Cameron began to cast 
about for new guides to the coast. He stayed here a week, 
which, comj)ared with those that made up the last year, was 
one. of luxury, for, on being well paid, Alvez supplied him 
with coffee, onions and soap. This last article he had been 
without for a year, and he gave himself a thorough cleans- 
ing, which greatly revived him. Alvez's settlement was 
very much like those of the natives, except some of the 
huts were larger. 

Cameron was now approaching Portuguese settlements, 
near the coast, and it was necessary to buy j)rovisions for 
the march, and clothes to clothe his people before en- 
tering civilized society. All his European cloth had dis- 
appeared, and his men were dressed in rags of grass cloth, 
often so scant that the wearers might as well have been 
stark naked. Alvez supplied his wants, but cheated him 
in doing so. Cameron, however, felt he was at his mercy 
and paid him his prices, and was finally off on the 10th of 
October. He was glad to get rid of, him and his great 
caravan, with its suffering slaves, and turned his face reso- 
lutely toward the coast. After j^assing several villages, he 
came to the town of Kagnombe, the largest he had yet 
seen — ^being three miles in circumference. A ceremonial 
visit to the braggart chief of it ended in the latter getting 
beastly drunk, when Cameron wandered about the town 
noting the peculiarities of the j^lace and its savage customs. 



A LASCIVIOUS DANCE. 3G7 

Tlie next morning, after a walk of a few hours, he ar- 
rived at the settlement of Senor Goncalves, a Portuguese, 
who had formerly been master of a ship, but had finally 
settled down in this remote region. He owned six villages, 
the inhabitants of which were practically his slaves. Each 
one furnished a caravan, by which he kept up a brisk trade 
with the coast, and lived in luxury and comfort here, in 
the healthy uplands of Bibi. For the first time for nearly 
two years Cameron now slept between sheets. 

It was a long and weary distance yet to the coast, but 
somewhat refreshed by this slave-trader's hospitality, he 
set off again, and passing village after village, at length 
came to Lungi, where there was to be, the day after his 
arrival, an important festival, and as a natural consequence 
a big drunk. Of course, his men refused to travel till it 
was over. At the appointed time, the inhabitants assem- 
bled under a huge banyan tree, and began to sing, and 
dance, and drink their pombe. The men and w^omen 
danced together, their suggestive motions being accom- 
panied by ribald songs, and the scene was one of licentious- 
ness almost beyond belief. It was one of those scenes that 
exhibit in the strongest colors the utter debasement of the 
ravage tribes of Africa. 

He had some difficulty in getting away from here, owing 
to the rheumatism and swollen feet of many of his people, 
caused by the wet and cold. At length they were off, and 
he says : 

"Almost directly after starting, we came upon rocky 
hills, with brawling burns rushing along their rugged 
courses, and here and there falls, from twenty to thirty 
feet in height, the crystal water sparkling in the sunlight, 
as it dashed from crag to crag. Large tree ferns grew on 
the banks, and amongst the bushes were myrtle, jasmines 
and other flowering shrubs, whilst a variety of beautiful 



3G8 AN AFEICAX PAEADISE. 

ferns, similar to maiden-liair, and other delicate kinds, 
flourished in the damp crevices of the rocks. 

** As we went forward the scenery increased in beauty, 
and at last I was constrained to halt and surrender myself 
to the enjoyment of the view which lay before me. I wdll 
content myself with asserting that nothing could be more 
lovely than this entrancing scene, this glimpse of a para- 
dise. To describe it would be impossible, neither poet, 
with all the wealth of world-imagery, nor painter, with 
almost supernatural genius, could by ^en or pencil do full 
justice to the country of Bailunda. In the foreground 
were glades in the woodland, varied by knolls crowned by 
groves of large, English-looking trees, sheltering villages, 
with yellow thatched roofs ; shambas, or plantations, w^itli 
the fresh green of young crops and bright red of newly- 
hoed ground in vivid contrast, and running streams flash- 
ing in the sunlight ; whilst in the far distance w^ere moun- 
tains of endless and pleasing variety of form, gradually 
fading away, until they blended with the blue of the sky. 
Overhead there drifted fleecy- white clouds ; and the hum 
of bees, the bleating of goats and crowing of cocks broke 
the stillness of the air. 

'^As I lay beneath a tree, in indolent contemplation of 
the beauties of nature in this most favored spot, all thought 
of the work still before me vanished from my mind ; but 
I was rudely awakened from my pleasant reverie by the 
apj)earance of the loaded caravan, with the men grunting, 
yelling and laboring under their burdens. Thus the dream 
of fairy-land was dispelled and the realities of my work, 
with its toil and trouble, returned. 

" That evening we encamped in a wood, a clear space 
having literally to be cut out of the masses of sweet-scented 
ereej)ers wdiich festooned the trees." 

Cameron here turned aside to visit the Kongo chief of 



DESPERATE STATE OF AFFAIRS. o69 

tlie Bailunda at his capital, Kambala. Tlie huts were 
built on a hill-side amono; rocks, and were surrounded bv a 
palisade. He was kept some time waiting for his appear- 
ance, sitting on a stool — several of 'which surrounded an 
old arm-chair that served as a throne for the sable 
monarch. Kongo, at last, entered, dressed in a much- faded 
and dilapidated uniform, with a huge, battered cocked hat 
on his head, and being very aged and much under the i::- 
fluence of drink, he had to be helped along and placed en 
his throne. He was t:o drunk to know what he was about 
and Cameron, having presented him with a gun, retired. 
Though now near the coast, among people who had more 
or less intercourse with white men, Cameron began to 
suffer more severely than he had at any time since leaving 
the Lualaba. He had now been some tAvo months pushing 
his way slowly in a south-westerly direction, since he aban- 
doned the effort to follow the Congo to the sea. Through 
the various provinces and districts, and j)ast innumerable 
villages, the caravan had pressed on without serious incon- 
venience ; the natives either being too peaceably inclined or 
too weak to offer any resistance. But, now, his men were 
gradually giving out — getting every day more unfit to 
march — and, at the best, made such short ones that the 
coast, 'practically, was yet a great way off. Added to this, 
the rain set in, and the weak, discouraged, foot-sore caravan, 
as it slowly dragged itself over the wet ground, looked like 
a long funeral procession c Besides, the only money that 
could buy food had given out — ^both cloth and trinkets. 
Stragglers also disappeared and had to be waited for or 
hunted up- — one died and was thrown into a jungle because, 
if buried, the grave might be discovered and they be de- 
layed to settle the matter with the natives. Things were 
getting in a desperate condition. At last, one day, they 
had been six hours on the march, in a pouring rain, and 



O/U A FOPvCED MAECH. 

jet were compelled to rest so often tliat tliey had been 
moving onward only two hours and a half. Cameron now 
saw that something decisive must be done. He found that 
he was yet one hundred and twenty-six miles from the 
coast, while upwards of twenty men were sick or lame, 
and all hungry and filling the air with their groans and 
complaints. When, therefore, they went into camp, he 
took his pipe and sat down to think over his situation, and, 
after a half an hour's reflection, resolved to throw away his 
tent, boat, bed— r-every thing but instruments, journals and 
books — and, selecting a few strong men, make a forced 
march to the sea, and send back assistance to the main 
body. So, early on the following morning, taking five of 
his own men and some natives who joined him after his 
visit to Kongo and hence were fresh, he started. All he 
had in the way of provisions, or anything to purchase 
them with for himself personally, were a half a fowl, a little 
flour and two yards of cloth. They made a sharp march 
the first day and, at night, pitched their camp on a moun- 
tain, five thousand eight hundred feet above the sea. Up 
with the dawn they pushed on again, meeting caravans from 
the coast, bound inland, the leaders astonished at seeing a 
white man on foot and none but natives for his companions. 
After eleven hours of stiff marching, they were com- 
pelled to go into camp at an elevation of nearly four thou- 
sand feet above the sea. At five o'clock the next morning 
they were off again — ^passing cultivated fields, the owners 
of which, however, would enter into no negotiations for the 
gale of food. At two o'clock they came suddenly upon a 
village so entirely hidden by rocks and trees, that they did 
not see it till they were almost at the entrance. Here they 
got a little flour, and pushed on. That night Cameron 
was completely fagged out, having been on his feet eleven 
hours. 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA. 371 

The next day, the way became fearfully rough, and the 
tired travelers were compelled to crawl on their hands and 
knees over rocks and slide down into deep ravines, and 
then climb their precipitous sides by aid of vines, Avliile 
graves and skeletons along the path told how many had 
lain down and died on this terrible march. Clogs and 
forks of wood were lying by their side, telling the sad 
story of the fate of many a slave who, wearied with his 
long, painful journey from the interior, finally succumbed 
here, getting a happy release from the sufferings of the 
middle passage and the brutality of a task-master. 

At night they encamped near a village, and Cameron 
offered all the cloth he had for a little milk, which was 
refused, and he had to borrow more from one of the cara- 
vans before he could get it, and then found it sour. He 
passed a feverish, painful night, but was off at half-past 
four in the morning, and soon met noisy caravan after 
caravan pushing inland. At length, with much hard 
scrambling, he reached the summit of a ridge, and looking 
off westward, asked himself, with eager anxiety, 

" What is that distant line upon the sky ?" 

At length he exclaimed, in rapture, " The sea! the sea!" 
His men took up the shout, and. " the sea ! the sea ! " went 
up in one exultant cry. But the welcome sight did not 
give them strength, and they crawled wearily over the 
ground, and at four o'clock were obliged to stop and go 
into camp. 

The next morning they were compelled to march through 
a pass that was like a furnace, from the reflection of the 
sun's rays striking against the rocks. That night was the 
last passed out of civilization. Before sunrise next morn- 
ing they were on the march, and soon came in sight of the 
sea and a little later of Katombella, situated on the shore. 
Swinging his rifle over his head, Cameron ran down the 



372 camero:n"'s daxgeeous illness. 

slope, crazed with joy, and in a short time was in the house 
of Monsieur Cauchoix, an okl officer of the French navy, 
who had settled as merchant at Benguella. Here they 
were all provided with quarters and as much food as they 
desired, and soon the men were all gloriously drunk. 

Cameron having dispatched relief to the main body, now 
turned his attention to himself. His mouth, which had 
begun to bleed the day before, suddenly grew worse — his 
tongue became so swollen that it protruded out of his 
mouth, from which the blood flowed profusely, while he; 
w^as unable to speak or swallow. 

In the meantime his body was covered with blotches, 
purple, blue and green, and he was threatened with immC' 
diate suffocation. The doctor of the hospital was sent for, 
who began at once to apply powerful remedies. Yet, in so 
dangerous a condition did he consider him to be, that he did 
not leave his side for forty-eight hours. Had this attack 
seized him a day sooner, w^hen away from medical aid, he 
would inevitably have died. It was a narrow escape. He 
now began to mend rapidly, and on November 11th, the 
rest of his men came in except one, who had died since he 
left them on his forced march. Bombay celebrated his de- 
liverance by getting drunk and abusing everybody, not 
excepting the host, Cauchoix, himself. Cameron wished 
to flog him, but those whom the drunken brute had abused 
interceded for him, and he w^as let off. 

Here he came across a queer specimen of a Yankee, who 
was in the employ of Cauchoix. He asked Cameron 
whether he had been traveling " on his own hook," or been 
" working for a comj)any." He said he should like to have 
been with him, but " he didn't care about the darned walk- 
ing." Among other things, he had been master of an 
American barque, and traded in snakes, tliat he found up 
Bome African river. He liked the business, he said, and 



WELCOME AT HOME. 373 

asked Cameron if lie could easily get hold of some big 
snakes. 

A fortnight later he and his men were landed in the 
harbor of Loanda by a little Portuguese steamer, that had 
been ordered to convey them there. Cameron went at 
once to the English consulate. As the consul entered the 
room where he was awaiting his arrival, the latter said : 
" I have come to report myself from Zanzibar, overland." ' 

The consul stared at hira a moment in blank surprise, 
then stepping quickly forward, and placing both his hands 
on his shoulders, exclaimed : " Cameron ! my God r 

He was detained here some time in getting a ship to 
convey his men back to Zanzibar ; but at last he saw them 
aboard a ship and sail out of the harbor, and then took a 
steamer for home, and on the 2d of April arrived in the 
Mersey, and was welcomed by scores of delighted friends, 
who never expected to see him again. 

More than three years had passed since he first set sail 
on his perilous expedition, much of the time having been 
spent in the very heart of Africa. He had heard nothing 
of Stanley, and now public attention was turned to this 
daring explorer. Would he accomplish more than this 
man, who had crossed the continent without one white man 
as a companion, or would he leave his bones in some Afri- 
can forest? It will be seen in the following chapters what 
he was doing, and, in the end, accomplished. 

As Mr. Stanley went over the same ground that Came- 
ron gave most of his attention to, we have not dwelt on the 
discoveries of the latter, because the former explored it 
more thoroughly, and hence the results of hi^ work will 
be more satisfactory to the reader. 

The iniquitous slave trade occupies the same prominence 
in Cameron's sight that it did in Livingstone's, and as it 
does in Baker's and Stanley's estimation, and he says, in 



374 THE SLAVE-TKADE QUESTION. 

conclusion : " The question now before the civilized world 
is, whether the slave trade in Africa, which causes, at the 
lowest estimate, an annual loss of over a half a million of 
lives, is to be permitted to continue. Every one worthy 
of the name of a man will say, * No ! ' But it is not to be 
stopped by talking and writing. Every one must put his 
shoulder to the wheel — some to aid commerce, and some 
missionary effort, till civilization and light are forced into 
the heart of the dark continent." 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY ON CAMERON's 

NEW ROUTE. 

Beyond the ranges of Kilimacho and Nyoka are broad 
and well-watered plains, extending to Kalomba, east of 
which is a shallow basin about five or six miles across, 
where the soil is salt and there are some salt springs. 

From Kalomba to Lunga Mandis, the country consisted 
of wooded hills, flat-topped table-lands of sand and broad 
marshes bordering streams. The channel of the river is 
continually changing, and in a year or two no trace remains 
of its former course. This is owing to the growth of semi- 
aquatic vegetation, which' quickly closes up every space 
where the water does not flow rapidly ; and this accounts 
for the fact that toward the end of the dry season, the 
actual channel is much smaller than in the rainy. 

If these swamps prove to be the modern representatives 
of the old coal-measures, we should find ferns, papyrus — 
especially its roots ; trees — some fallen on their sides and 
half-rotten; others still standing, and stumps and grasses 
amongst the vegetable fossils ; whilst those of the animal 
kingdom should include skeletons of mud-fish and frogs, 
and also of an occasional crocodile, buffalo or hippo- 
potamus. 



THE KIBOKWI COUNTB-Y. 370 



The country in Ussambi consisted mostly of flat-topped 
sandstone bills. Strata of red and yellow sandstone alter- 
nated, and between them and the granite were usually 
masses of water- worn pebbles. 

Ulunda is a thickly-wooded country, with gentle undu- 
lations and occasional savannahs or meadows, watered by 
numberless streams, most of them running northward to 
the Kongo. 

At its western side, broad plains stretcb right across 
Lovali. They are light and sandy in the dry season, with 
belts of trees along the different watercourses intersecting 
them, but during the rains become quagmires and morasses. 
The water-shed between the Zambesi and Kongo basins 
lies along the centre of tbese plains — which in the annu- 
ally rainy season are waist-dee|) in water, and the two 
basins then actually join. 

West of Lovali is the country of Kibokwi, where the 
rise out of the central depression becomes very marked, 
and the country is neaidy all covered with forests. Bee 
culture is here the chief occupation of the natives. The 
large trees are utilized to support their beehives, the pro- 
duce of which forms a considerable and profitable item of 
barter. They exchange the wax f:r all the foreign trade 
goods they require, and from the honey make a sort of 
mead, which is strong and by no means unpalatable. The 
people work iron tastefully and well. They obtain the ore 
•^rom the nodules found in the beds of the streams. The 
basins of the Kongo and Zambesi terminate in the western 
portion of Kibokwi, where that of the Kwanza com- 
mences. 

The country of Bihi is entered after the Kwanza is 
crossed — the eastern portion being formed of wooded hills 
of red sandstone, with many running brooks and. rills, 
whilst in the western part are wide prairies and bare downs, 



0/(j EASTERN AND WESTERN BAILUNDA. 

with a few patches of wood. A peculiar feature is th(3 
immber of streams wliich flow underground for a portion 
of tlieir course, the most remarkable instance being the 
" Burst of the Kulato," the boundary between Bihi and 
Bailunda. The eastern j)ortion of Bailunda is moderately 
level, with rocky hills, on the summits of which are 
situated the villages of the chiefs ; but, as the western por- 
tion is reached, the country breaks into mountains of every 
shape and form, among which are needles and cones of 
granite. In the foreground the hills are of red sandstone, 
crowned with groves of magnificent trees, festooned with 
jasmines and other sweet-scented creepers. 

At the western side of Bailunda the caravan reached 
the culminating point of the section across the continent. 

A mountainous and rocky tract lies between this and the 
west coast. In some of the passes the solid granite hills 
are cuj)ola and dome-shaped, like the Puy-de-Dome, in 
Auvergne. But even among this mass of rocky, sterile 
mountains lie fertile valleys, where the peoj^le cultivate 
large quantities of corn, which they carry down to the 
coast to exchange for aquardienti and cloth. 

After passing Kizanji, forty miles from the sea, no more 
human habitations are seen till Katombela is reached. 
Nearly thirty miles of this part of the road is through one 
continuous j)ass of bare granite rocks, with only the occa- 
sional shelter of a boabab-tree, or a giant euphorbia. To 
this pass succeeds a barren waste of sand and gravel, sejDa- 
rated from the sea by a low, flat strip of land on the sea- 
ward side; and here the towns of Katombela and Ben- 
guella are situated. This strip only needs irrigation to 
make it yield all tropical productions, and, as water is 
obtained everywhere close to the surface, large and pro- 
ductive gardens are easily cultivated. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 



Stanley's last great expedition. 



STANLEY THINKS OF AFEICA AKD LIVINGSTONE'S INriNISHED 'WOKK— DETERl\nNES TO COMPLETS 
IT— TAKES A BOAT OF HIS OWN ALONG — AT ZANZIBAR AGAIN— STARTS FOR THE INTERIOR- 
TAKES A NEW ROUTE— THE COUNTRY PASSED THROUGH— DESERTED BY HIS GUIDES — LOSES 
THE PATH— A PAINFUL MARCH— STARVATION AND DEATH— A GLOOMY PROSPECT— TWO YOUNG 
LIONS KILLED AND MADE INTO BROTH— A TRUNK USED FOR A KETTLE— A PAINFUL SPECTACLE- 
MEN SENT OFF FOR FOOD AT LAST RETURN— JOY OF THE CAMP— THE MARCH— A NEW TYPE Off 
NATIVES— NAKED BEAUTY — SICKNESS AND DEATH— DEATH OF EDWARD POCOKE — HIS BURIAL— 
STANLEY'S LETTER TO HIS FATHER— A MAN MURDERED — ITWRU REACHED — A POPULOUS 
PLAIN— INTERCOURSE WITH THE PEOPLE— A MAGIC DOCTOR. 

STANLEY, after he had found Livingstone, naturally 
thought much of the latter's explorations. Africa 
had become to him an absorbing subject, till he began to 
imbibe the spirit of Livingstone. This was natural, for 
he had won fame there, and why should he not win still 
greater laurels in the same field ? This feeling was much 
increased after the death of the great explorer, with his 
work unfinished, and he longed to complete it. True, 
Cameron was on the ground to accomplish this very object, 
but Stanley knew the difiiculties he would have to contend 
with without a boat of his own. The matter was talked 
over a good deal, and finally the proprietors of the New 
York Herald and London Telegraph determined to send 
him out. The vast lake region, embracing some six de- 
grees of longitude and extending from the equator to 
fifteen degrees south latitude, had become a region of the 
greatest interest to explorers. On this vast water-shed 
lived a mighty population, and these lakes, with the rivers 
running into and out of them, must furnish the roads to 

377 



378 AGAIN AT ZANZIBAR. 

commerce and be the means by which Africa would b« 
lifted out of its barbarism into the light of civilization. 

The large lakes Nyassa and Tanganika had been more 
or less explored, but the one possessing the greatest inte- 
rest — the Victoria Nyanza, on account of the general im- 
pression that it was the head of the Nile — was almost 
wholly unknown. The persistence with which the Nile 
had mocked all the efforts to find its source, had imparted 
a mystery to it and caused efforts to be made to unlock the 
secret, apparently wholly disproportioned to its value or 
real importance. This lake, therefore, was to be Stanley's 
first objective point. Livingstone, Spek^ and Burton, and 
others had seen it — he would sail round it in a boat which 
he would take with him. This he had made in sections, 
so that it could be carried the nearly one thousand miles 
through the jungles of Africa to its destination. 

Everything being completed he started on his route, and 
in the latter part of 1874 found himself once more at Zan- 
zibar. Here, in organizing his expedition, he discovered 
that the builder had made his boat, which he had chris- 
tened the Lady Alice, a great deal heavier than he had 
ordered ; but he luckily found a man in Zanzibar who was 
able to reduce its weight so that it could be transported by 
the carriers. It is not necessary to go into a description 
of how he organized the new expedition, nor of his journey 
along his old route to Unyanyembe. His force consisted 
in all of a little over three hundred men, and he took with 
him this time several powerful dogs. The interest of the 
expedition begins when he struck off from the regular 
route of the caravans going west, and entered an entirely 
new country and encountered a new race of people. In- 
stead of moving directly westward, he turned off to the 
north, and at length reached the western frontier of Ugogo, 
w\ the last day of the year 1874. The country at this 



DESERTED BY THE GUIDES. 379 

point stretched before liim in one vast plain, which some 
of the natives said extended clear to Nyanza. He found 
that his course led him along the extremity of Whumba, 
which he was glad to know, as he thought his march would 
now be unmolested. Two days' march brought them to 
the borders of Usandawa, a country abounding in ele- 
phants. Here he turned to the north-west and entered 
Ukimbu or Uyonzi on its eastern extremity. The guides 
he had hired in Ugogo to take him as far as Iramba here 
deserted him. Hiring fresh ones, he continued two days 
in the same direction, when these deserted him also, and 
Stanley found himself one morning on the edge of a vast 
wilderness without a guide. The day before, the guides 
had told him that three days' march would bring him to 
Urimi. Relying on the truth of this statement, he had 
purchased only two days' provisions. Thinking, therefore, 
that they would be there by the evening of the next day, 
he thought little of the desertion and moved off with con- 
fidence. But the next morning, the track, which was 
narrow and indistinct at the best, became so inextricably 
mixed up with the paths made by elephants and rhino cerDs, 
that they were wholly at loss what course to take. Halting, 
Stanley sent out men to seek the lost path, but they .re- 
turned unable to find it. They then, of course, had nothing 
left to do but to march by compass, which they did. 

As might be expected, it brought them, after a few hours' 
march, into a dense jungle of acacias and euphorbias, through 
which they could make their way only by crawling, scram- 
bling and cutting the entangling vines. Now pushing aside 
an obstructing branch — now cutting a narrow lane through 
the matted mass, and now taking advantage of a slight 
opening, this little band of three hundred struggled pain- 
fully forward toward what they thought was open country, 
and an African village with plenty of provisions. 



380 A FEARFUL DEATH ROLL. 

In this protracted sti^uggle the third night overtook them 
in the wilderness, and there they pitched their lonely, 
starving camp. To make it more gloomy, one of the men 
died and was buried ; his shallow grave seeming to be a 
sad foreboding of what awaited them in the future. The 
want of provisions now began to tell terribly on the men 
but there was nothing to do but go forward, trusting to 
some outbreak to this apparently interminable wilderness. 
But human endurance has jts limit, and although Stanley 
kept his little force marching all day, they made but four- 
teen miles. It was a continual jungle, with not a drop of 
water on the route. The poor carriers, hungry and thirsty, 
sunk under their loads and lagged behind the main force 
for many miles, until it became a straggling, weary, de- 
spondent crowd, moving without order and without care 
through the wilderness. The strong endeavored to help 
the weak, and did relieve them of their burdens and 
encourage them to hold on, so that most of them were able 
to reach the camp at night. But in despite of all effort five 
sick, despairing men, strayed from the path, which was 
only a blind trail made by those in advance. After the 
camp for the night was pitched, Stanley sent back scouts 
to find them, who explored the woods for a mile each side 
of the track they had made, but only one man was found, 
and he full a mile from the trail and dead. The other 
four had wandered off beyond reach and were never heard 
of more. This was getting to be fearful marching — five 
men in one day was a death roll that could not be kept up 
long, and Stanley began to cast about anxiously to deter- 
mine what step he should next take. But there was but 
one course left open to him, to attempt to retrace his steps 
was certain death by famine, to advance could not be worse, 
while it might bring relief, so push on was the order, and 
they did push on weary, thirsty, starving, and on the fifth 



IN" SEARCH OF FOOD. 381 

day came to a little village recently established, and wliich 
consisted of only four huts, occupied by four men with 
their wives and children. These had scarcely provisions 
enough to keep themselves, and hence could give nothing 
to Stanley's starving men. It was useless to attempt 
further marching without food, for the men staggered into 
camp exhausted, and would rather die there than attempt 
to move again. 

Stanley's experience had taught him how far he could 
urge on these African carriers and soldiers, and he saw 
they had now become desperate and would not budge 
another inch until they had something to eat. He, there- 
fore, ordered a halt, and selecting twenty of his strongest 
men, sent them off in search of food. They were to press 
on to a village called Suna, about thirty miles distant, of 
which the natives told him, and where they said food was 
in abundance. As soon as they had disappeared in the 
forest, Stanley took his gun and strolled out in search of 
game. But, filled as the country seemed with it, he could • 
find nothing to shoot. One of his men, however, came 
across a lion's den, in which were two cubs, which he 
brought to Stanley. The latter skinned them and took 
them back to camp. As he entered it, the pinched and 
worn faces of his faithful men, as they sat hungry and 
despairing, moved him so deeply that he would have wept, 
but for fear of adding to their despondency. The two cubs 
would go but a little way toward feeding some two hundred 
and twenty men, if cooked as ordinary meat, so he resolved 
to make a soup of them, which would go much farther. 
But the question was where to get a kettle large enough to 
make a soup for such a large body of men. Luckily, he 
bethought himself of a sheet-iron trunk which he had 
among his baggage, and which was water-tight. He 
quickly dumped out of it its contents, and filling it with 



382 LION BROTH. 

water, set it over a fire which, he had ordered to be made* 
He then broke open his medical stores, and taking out five 
pounds of Scotch oatmeal and three one-pound tins of 
revalenta Arabica, he made with it and the two young 
lions a huge trunk full of gruel, that would give -even two 
hundred and twenty men a good bowl apiece. He said it 
was a rare sight to see those hungry, famished men gather 
around that Torquay dress-trunk and pile on the fuel, and 
in every way assist to make the contents boil, while with 
greedy eyes, w^ith gourds in their hands, full of water, they 
stood ready to pour it in the moment it threatened to boil 
over and waste the precious contents. But he adds, "it was 
a rarer sight still to watch the famished wretches, as, with 
these same gourds full of the precious broth, they drank it 
down as only starving men swallow food. The .weak 
and sick got a larger portion, and another tin of oatmeal 
being opened for their supper and breakfast, they waited 
patiently the return of those who had gone in quest of 
food." 

Stanley's position now became painfully trying. He 
was five days' march from where he could obtain food, if 
he attempted to go back, which, in the present condition of 
his men, they could never make, and if any survived, it 
would be on. the terrible condition of the living eating the 
dead. 

The only hope lay in reaching supplies in advance. 
But what if those twenty strong men he had sent on to 
find them never returned, having been ambushed and 
killed on the w^ay, or what if they, at the end of several 
days, returned and reported nothing but an unbroken 
wilderness and impassable jungle or swamps in front, and 
themselves famished, ready to die ? These were questions 
that Stanley anxiously put to himself and dared not con- 
template the answer. The hours of painful anxiety and 



RETURN OF THE SCOUTS. 383 

suspense, the maddening thoughts and wild possibilities 
that fire the brain and oppress the heart in such crises as 
these cannot be imagined, they can be known only by him 
who suffers the pangs they inflict. This is a portion of the 
history of the expedition that Stanley can never ^write, 
thou2:h it is written on his heart in lines that will never 
be effaced. 

The empty trunk lay on one side, and the night came 
down and the stars burned bright and tranquilly above, and 
all was silent in the wide solitude as Stanley sat and listened 
for the return of his men. But they came not, and the 
mor'ning broke and the sun rode once more the tropical 
heavens in his splendor, but no musket shot from the forest 
told of the returning scouts. The weary hours wore on 
and the emaciated men lay around in silent suffering. To 
Stanley those hours seemed days. Night again darken/ jd 
the forest and still no sign of the returning party. Wou Id 
they ever return, was the terrible question Stanley w*is 
perpetually putting to himself, and if not, what despenj te 
movement should he attempt ? The third morning bro)\:e 
as calm and peaceful as the rest; he was beginning to 
despair, when, suddenly, a musket shot broke over t.'ie 
forest, and then another and another, sending sudden ]l fe 
and activity throughout the despairing camp. The m<m, 
as they emerged into view laden with food, were greets d 
with a loud shout, and the hungry wretches fell on tlie 
provisions they brought like ravening wolves. The report 
of abundance ahead so excited the men that they forgot 
their feebleness and clamored to be led on that very after- 
noon Stanley was quite willing to get away from the 
jungle, filled with such painful associations, and cheerfully 
ordered the march, but before they could get away two men 
breathed their last in the camp and were left to sleep alon© 

in the wildernes». 
20 



384 NEW TYPE OF NATIVES. 

That night they encamped at the base of a rocky hill, 
from which stretched away a broad plain. The hill — 
lifting itself into the clear air — the open plain seemed like 
civilization compared with the gloomy jungle in which they 
had been starving for the last two days, and where they 
had left two of their number, and they awoke next morn- 
ing cheerful and refreshed. Starting off with the prospect 
of abundant provisions ahead, they made a steady march 
of twenty miles and reached the district of Suna in Urimi. 

Stanley was surprised, on entering the rude village, to 
see a new type of African life. Men and women of great 
beauty and fine physical proportions met his astonished sight. 
They stood before him in all their naked beauty, unabashed ; 
the women bearing children alone wearing a covering of 
goat skins, designed evidently as a protection against ex- 
ternal injury, and not caused by any notions of modesty. 
Their fine appearance seemed to indicate a greater mental 
development than any other tribes which they had met. 
Whether this were so or not, it would be difficult to tell^ 
for they were the most suspicious, reserved people Stanley 
had ever met, being greatly disinclined to barter provisions, 
of which they had more than they wanted, for cloth and 
beads, of which they apparently had none. They had no 
chief, but seemed to be governed in their actions by the 
old men. With these Stanley therefore treated for per- 
mission to pass through their land. It required great tact 
to secure this, and still more to obtain the required food. 
Stanley bore this silent hostility patiently, for though he 
could have taken all he wanted by force, he wished to avoid 
all violence. While lingering here, two more of his ex- 
hausted company gave out and died, while his sick list 
Bwelled up to thirty. Among the latter was Edward 
Pocoke, who, with his brother, Stanley had engaged in 
England to accompany him as attendants.. This compelled 



DEATH OF POCOKE. 385 

him to halt for four days, but finding that the hostile 
feeling of the natives increased the longer he stayed, he 
determined, dangerous as it was to the sick, especially to 
Pocoke, to leave. Dysentery and diarrhoea was prevailing 
to an alarming extent, and rest was especially necessary for 
these, if they hoped to recover ; but he was afraid matters 
would become dangerously complicated if he remained, 
and he turned his soldiers into carriers and slung the sick 
into hammocks. Encouraging them with the prospect of 
plenty and comfort ahead, he gave the order to march, and 
they passed out and entered upon a clear, open and well 
cultivated country. Reaching a village at ten o'clock they 
halted, and here young Pocoke breathed his last "to the 
great grief of all." In speaking of the sad event that cast 
a gloom over the camp, Stanley says : " We had finished 
the four^ hundredth mile of our march from the sea and 
had reached the base of the water-shed, where the trick- 
ling streams and infant waters began to flow Nileward, 
when this noble young man died.'' They buried him at 
night under a tree, with the stars shining down on the 
shallow-made grave — Stanley reading the burial service 
of the Church of England over the body. Far from home 
and friends in that distant, lonely land he sleeps to-day, a 
simple wooden cross marking his burial place. Stanley 
sent the following letter home to his father, describing his 
sickness and death : 

LETTER TO POCOKE's FATHER. 

Kagehyi, on the Victoria Nyanza, 
March 4th, 1375. 
Dear Sir : — A most unpleasant, because sad, task de- 
volves upon me, for I have the misfortune to have to report 
to you the death of your son Edward, of typhoid fever. 



t>86 Stanley's letter. 

His service with me was brief, but it was long enough fot 
me to know the greatness of your loss, for I doubt that few 
fathers can boast of such sons, as yours. Both Frank and 
Ted proved themselves sterling men, noble and brave 
hearts and faithful servants. Ted had endeared himself to 
the members of the expedition by his amiable nature, his 
cheerfulness and by various qualifications which brought 
him into high favor with the native soldiers of this force. 
Before daybreak we were accustomed to hear the cheery 
notes of his bugle, which woke us to a fresh day's labor ; 
at night, around the camp-fires, we w^ere charmed with his 
sweet, simple songs, of which he had an inexhaustible 
repertoire. When tired also with marching, it was his task 
to announce to the tired people the arrival of the vanguard 
at cam J), so that he had become quite a treasure to us all ; 
and I must say, I have never known men who could bear 
what your sons have borne on this expedition so patiently 
and uncomplainingly. I never heard one grumble either 
from Frank or Ted; have never heard them utter an 
illiberal remark, or express any wish that the expedition 
had never set foot in Africa, as many men would have 
done in their situation, so that you may well imagine, that 
if the loss of one of your sons causes grief to your paternal 
heart, it has been no less a grief to us, as we were all, as it 
were, one family, surrounded as we are by so much that is 
dark and forbidding. 

On arriving at Suna, in Urina, Ted came to me, after a 
very long march, complaining of pain in his limbs and loins. 
I did not think it was serious at all, nor anything uncom- 
mon after walking twenty miles, but told him to go and lie 
down, that he would be better on the morrow, as it was 
very likely fatigue. The next morning I visited him, and 
he again complained of pains in the knees and back, at 
which I ascribed it to rheumatism, and treated him accord- 



POCOKE S BURIAL. 



389 



ingly. The third day he ccmplained of pain in the chest, 
difficulty of breathing and sleeplessness, from which I per- 
ceived he was suffering from some other malady than rheu- 
matism, but what it could be I could not divine. He was 
a little feverish, so I gave him a mustard-plaster and some 
aperient medicine. Toward night he began to. wander in 
his head, and on examining his tongue I found it was 
almost black and coated with dark-gray fur. At these 
symptoms I thought he had a -severe attack of remittent 
fever, from which I suffered in Ujiji, in 1871, and there- 
fore I watched for an opportunity to administer quinine — ■ 
that is, when the fever should abate a little. But, on the 
fourth day, the patient still wandering in his mind, I sug- 
gested to Frank that he should sponge him with cold 
water and change his clothing, during which operation I 
noticed that the chest of the patient was covered with 
sj»ots like pimples or small-pox postules, which perplexed 
me greatly. He could not have caught the small-pox, 
and what tlie disease was I could not imagine ; but, turn- 
ing to my medical books, I saw that your son was suffering 
from typhoid, the description of which was too clear to 
be longer mistaken, and both Frank and I devoted our 
attention to him. He was nourished with arrow-root and 
brandy, and everything that was in our power to do was 
done ; but it was very evident that the case was serious, 
though I hoped that his constitution would brave it out. 

On the fifth day we were compelled to resume our jour- 
ney, after a rest of four days. Ted was put in a hammock 
and carried on the shoulders of four men. At ten o'clock 
on the 17 til of January we halted at Chiwyn, and the 
minute that he was laid down in the camp he breathed his 
last. Our companion was dead. 

We buried him that night under a tree, on which his 
brother Frank had cut a deep cross, and read the beautiful 



390 STANLEY ELATED WITH HOPE. 

service of the Church of England over him as we laid the 
poor worn-out body in its final resting-place. 

Peace be to his ashes. Poor Ted deserved a better fate 
than dying in Africa, but it was, impossible that he could 
have died easier. I wish that my end may be as peaceful 
and painless as his. He was spared the stormy scenes we 
went through afterwards in our war with the Waturn ; 
and who knows how much he has been saved from ? But 
I know that he would have rejoiced to be with us at this 
hour of our triumph, gazing on the laughing waters of the 
vast fountain of old Nile. None of us would have been 
more elated at the prospect before us than he, for he was 
a true sailor, and loved the sight of water. Yet again I 
say peace be to his ashes ; be consoled, for Frank still 
lives, and, from present appearances, is likely to come 
home to you with honor and glory, such as lie and you 
may well be proud of Believe me, dear sir, with true 
sincerity, your well-wisher, 

Henry M. Stanley. 

Stanley still traveled in a north-west direction, and the 
farther he advanced the more he was convinced that the 
rivulets he encountered flowed into the Nile, and he became 
elated with the hope that he should soon stand on the shores 
of the great lake that served as the reservoir of the mighty 
river. 

Two days' march now brought them to Mongafa, where 
one of his men who had accompanied him on his former 
expeditioii was murdered. He was suffering from the asthma, 
and Stanley permitted him to follow the j^arty slowly. 
Straggling thus behind alone, he Avas waylaid by the 
natives and murdered. It was impossible to ascertain who 
committed the deed, and so Stanley could not avenge the 
crime. 



THE MAGIC DOCTOR. COl 

Keeping on they at lenf^th entered Itwrn, a district of 
Northern Urinii. The villa/^e where they camped was 
called Vinyata, and was sittiated in a broad and populous 
valley, containing some two thousand to three thousand 
souls, through which flowed a stream twenty feet wide. 
The people here received him in a surly manner, but 
Stanley was very anxious to avoid trouble and used every 
exertion to conciliate them. He seemed at last to succeed,, 
for at evening t^hey brought him milk, eggs and chickens, 
taking cloth in exchange. This reached the ears of the 
great man of the valley, a magic doctor, who, there being 
no king over the people, is treated with the highest respect 
and honor by them. The next day he brought Stanley a 
fat ox, for which the latter paid him twice what it wasf 
worth in cloth and beads, besides making a rich present to 
his brother and son. To all his requests he cheerfully con- 
sented in his anxiety to conciliate him and the natives. 

That day, taking advantage of the bright sun to dry the 
bales and goods, he exposed his rich stores, an imprudence 
which he very quickly deeply regretted, for he saw that the 
display awoke all the greedy feelings of the natives, as was 
evinced by their eager looks. But the day passed quietly, and 
on the third morning the great man made his appearance 
again and begged for more beads, which were given him 
and he departed apparently very much pleased, and Stan- 
ley congratulated himself that he would be allowed to 
depart in peace. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

iTtE CAMP— VIEW FROM IT— HOSTILE DEMONSTRATIONS— A THREE DAYS' FIGHT— A MASSACRE— i» 
MODERN SODOM— A TERRIBLE VENGEANCE— TWENTY-ONE OF XIIE EXPEDITION KILLED— A 
COMPLETE RUIN— PROVISIONS OBTAINED— THE MARCH RESUMED— ONLY A HUNDRED AND 
NINETY- FOUR MEN LEFT OUT OF THREE HUNDRED WITH WHICH HE STARTED— A GLOOMY OUT- 
LOOK—MISTAKEN FOR MIRAMBO— THE NYANZA REACHED AT LAST— A DESCRIPTION OF THB 
COUNTRY HE HAD PASSED THROUGH. 

]T^OE, a half an hour after the magic doctor left, Stanley 
sat quietly in his camp, his anxieties now thoroughly 
dissipated, thinking over his speedy departure for the 
Nyanza. The camp was situated on the margin of a vast 
w ilderness, which stretched he knew not how far westward, 
while away to the north, south and east extended a wide, 
0]>en plain, dotted over, as far as the eye could see, with 
villages. There were nearly two hundred of them, looking 
in the distance like clusters of beehives. Everything was 
j)eaceful, and not a sound disturbed the Sabbath-like still- 
n(iss of the scene, when there suddenly broke on his ears 
the shrill war-cry, which was taken up by village after 
village till the whole valley resounded with it. It was one 
loud "he-hu, he-hu," the last syllable prolonged and 
uttered in a high, piercing note that made the blood shiver. 
, Still Stanley felt no alarm, supposing that s(^me war expe- 
dition was about to be set on foot, or some enemy was 
reported to be near, and listened to the barbaric cry simply 
with curiosity. The men in the camp kept about their 
usual avocations — some fetching water from a neighboring 
pool, while others were starting off after wood — when sud- 
denly a hundred warriors appeared close to camp in full 
392 



A HOSTILE DEMONSTKATIOIS'. o.y'o 

war costume. Feathers of the eagle and other birds waved 
above their heads, " the mane of the zebra and giraffe en- 
circled their foreheads, their left hand held the bow and 
arrows, while the right grasped the spear." Stanley arose, 
and telli-ng the men not to leave camp nor do anything to 
provoke a hostile act, waited to see w^hat this sudden w^ar- 
like attitude meant. 

In the meantime the throng increased till the entire 
camj) was surrounded. A slight bush fence had been 
built around it, which, though it concealed tho^ within, 
was too slight to be of use in case of an attack. Seeing 
that this hostile demonstration was against him, Stanley 
sent out a young man who spoke their language, to inquire 
what they wanted. Six or seven w'arriors advanced to 
n\eet him, when a lively conversation followed. The mes- 
scrtiger soon returned and reported that they accused one 
0/ the joarty of having stolen some milk and butter from a 
small village, and they must be paid for it in cloth. He 
at once sent the messenger back, directing him to tell the 
warriors that he did not come into their country to rob or 
steal, and if anything had been taken from them they had 
but to name the price they asked for it and it should be 
paid at once. The messenger brought back w^ord that 
they demanded four yards of sheeting; although this was 
w^orth four times as much as the articles were which they 
alleged had been stolen, he was very glad to settle the 
matter so easily, and it was measured and sent to them. 
The elders declared that they were perfectly satisfied, and 
they all withdrew. But Stanley could not at once shake 
off the suspicion this unexpected show of hostile feeling 
had excited, and he w^atched narroAvly the villages in the 
distance. He soon saw^ that the warriors were not pacified 
if the elders were, for he couM see them hurrying together 
from all parts of the plain and gesticulating wildly. 



394 THE ATTACK. 

Still lie hoped that the elders would keep them from any 
overt act of hostility. While he was watching them he 
saw about two hundred separate themselves from the main 
body, and taking a sweep, make for the woods west of the 
camj). They had hardly entered them when one of his 
men rushed out of them into camp bleeding j)rofusely from 
his face and arms. He said that Suleiman (a youth) and 
he were gathering wood when the savages came suddenly 
upon them. He was struck with a stick that broke his 
nose, and his arm was pierced with a spear, while Suleiman 
fell pierced with a dozen spears. His story and bloody 
appearance so excited the soldiers that Stanley could with 
difficulty restrain them from rushing out at once and at- 
tacking the murderers. He did not yet desj)air of pre- 
venting an outbreak, but took care to open tlie ammunition 
and be prepared for the worst. He saw at once that an 
immensely large force could be brought against him, and 
he must fortify himself or he would be overwhelmed by 
numbers, and so ordered the men immediately to commence 
strengthening the fence. They had not been long employed 
at it when the savages made a dash at the camjD, and sent 
a shower of arrows into it. Stanley immediately ordered 
sixty soldiers to deploy fifty yards in front. At the word 
of command they rushed out, and the battle commenced. 
The enemy soon turned in flight and the soldiers pursued 
them. Every man was now ordered to work on the de- 
fenses; some cut down thorn-trees and threw together 
rapidly a high fence all round the camp, while others were 
ordered to build platforms within for the shari^-shooters. 
All this time Stanley could hear the fire of the soldiers 
growing more and more indistinct in the distance. When 
the fence was completed he directed the sections of the 
Lady Alice to be j^laced so as to form a sort of central 
camp, to which they could retire in the last extremity. As» 



SAVAGES AT BAY. 395 

soon i:s everytliiiig was finished he ordered the bugle to 
sound the retreat, and soon the skirmisliers came in sight. 
Th(j reported fifteen of the enemy killed. All had 
fought bravely, even a bull dog had seized a savage and 
vras tearing him to pieces, when a bullet put him out of 
his misery. 

They w^ere not molested again that day, which gave them 
time to make their position still stronger. The night 
passed quietly, and they were allowed to breakfast in peace. 
But about nine o'clock the savages in great numbers ad- 
vanced upon the camp. All hopes of jpesice were now at 
an end, and since he was forced to fight, Stanley determined 
to inflict no half-w^ay punishment, but sweep that fair val- 
ley with the besom of destruction. He therefore selected 
four reliable men, placed them at the head of four detach- 
ments, attaching to each one a fleet runner, whose duty was 
not to fight, but to report to him any disaster that threat- 
ened or befell the detachment to which he belonged, and 
ordered them to move out and attack the savages. As the 
route of the enemy was certain, he directed them to j^ursue 
them separately, yet keep before them as the place of final 
rendezvous, some high rocks five miles distant down the 
valley. The detachments poured forth from the camp, 
and the deadly fire-arms so appalled those savage warriors, 
armed only with the bow and spear, that they at once 
turned and fled. The detachments followed in hot pursuit, 
and what promised to be a fight, became a regular stam- 
pede. But one detachment having pursued a large force 
of the enemy into the open plain, the latter turned at 
bay. 

The leader of the detachment, excited by the pursuit, and 
oelieving, in his contempt for the savages, that the mere 
Bight of his little band would send them scurrying away in 
deadly fear, charged boldly on them. Quick as thouglit 



396 A SECOND SODOM. 

thev closed aronnd him in overwbelmino: numbers. The 
runner alone escaped and bore the sad tidings to Stanley. 
The appointment of these runners shows his wonderful 
prevision — that foresight which on many occasions alone 
saved him. He at ouce sent assistance to the detachment 
that the courier had rej)orted surrounded. Alas, before 
it arrived every man had been massacred. The aid, 
though it came too late to save the brave detachment, 
arrived just in time to save the second, which was just 
falling into the same snare, for the large force that had 
a.'inihilated the first had now turned on this, and its fate 
soemed sealed. The reinforcements hurried off by Stanley 
f(\und it completely hemmed in by the savages. Two 
soldiers had already been killed, the captain was wounded, 
aud in a few minutes more they would have shared the 
ffite of the first detachment. It was at this critical moment 
fhey arrived, and suddenly pouring a deadly volley into 
t]ie rear of the assailants, sent them to the right about with 
afetonishing quickness. The two detachments now wheeled 
and poured a concentrated volley into the savages, which 
sent them flying wildly over the plain. A swift pursuit 
^vsiS commenced, but the fleet enemy could not be over- 
taken, and the march u]) the valley was scarcely resisted. 
^';tanley, in camp, carefully watched the progress of the fight, 
>diich could be distinguished at first by the volleys of his 
soldiers, and when, receding in the distance, these could bo 
no longer heard, by the puffs of smoke which showed where 
the pursuit led. Bat at length smoke of a different char- 
acter began to ascend from tlie quiet valley. To the right 
and left the dark columns obscured the noonday sun, and 
far as the eye could reach the plain, with its hundreds of 
villages of thatched huts, j)resented one wide conflagration, 
till the murky mass of cloudy vapor, as it rolled heaven- 
ward, made it appear like a second Sodom, suffering the 



AN UTs'FORTUNATE EXPERIENCE. 397 

vengeance of heaven. To the distance of eight miles 
Stanley could see the jets of smoke that told of burning 
villages. He had delayed to the last moment hostile action, 
but having once commenced it he meant to leave behind 
him no power of retaliation. 

It was a victorious but sad day, and the return of the 
detachments was anything but a triumphal march, for they 
bore back twenty-one dead men, besides the wounded, 
while they could report but thirty-five of the enemy killed. 
So little difference in the number of the slain, when one 
was the pursued and the other the pursuing party, and 
when the former was armed only with spears and bows, 
and the latter with the deadly rifle, seems at first sight 
unaccountable, but it must be remembered that the 
unfortunate detachment that was surrounded and massacred 
to a man, furnished almost the entire list of the killed. 

The camp was at peace that night, but it was a SJ^d 
peace. A few more such victories as this and Stanl^^y 
would be left without an expedition. 

This unfortunate experience with these people showod 
the danger of his undertaking a new route. His object 
was not to travel among new people but to reach the la Ice 
region with his boat and settle great geographical problems 
and establish certain facts having an intimate bearing on 
the future of Africa. Yet by his course he obtained really 
no new and valuable information, but imperiled and weU- 
nigh ruined the expedition fitted out with so much expense 
and care. 

It was the nearest course to the lake, yet the long one by 
which Speke reached it was the safest. He had been in a 
perilous position, and it was clearly his own foresight that 
saved him. The appointment of a courier or swift runner 
to each detachment to act as a telegraph, would probably 
have occurred to few, yet this saved certainly one detach- 



398 THE VALLEY OF DESTRUCTION. 

ment from destruction and how much more no one can 
tell. 

But he was not satisfied with the vengeance he had 
taken and the devastation he had wrouoJit. He had 
resolved to teach those savage negroes a lesson on the 
danger of treachery to strangers, and he meant, now he 
had commenced it, to make it thorough and complete, and 
so next morning he sent off sixty men -to proceed to the 
farthest end of the valley, some eight miles away, and 
destroy what yet remained ; passing on through the ruins of 
the villages, they came to a large village in the extreme 
north-east. A very slight resistance was made here, and 
they entered it and applied the torch, and soon it shared 
the fate of all the rest. Before they destroyed it, however, 
they loaded themselves with grain. Provisions were, now 
plenty, for the frightened negroes had left everything 
behind them in their flight. There was no longer any 
n(3ed of purchasing food, the valley was depopulated, 
and all the accumulated provisions of the inhabitants at 
the mercy of the victors. Finding he had enough to last 
the expedition six days, Stanley next morning started 
westward before day-break, and was soon far away from 
this valley of destruction, leaving the thoroughly humbled 
natives to crawl back to the ashes of their ruined homes. 
Without further trouble, in three days, he reached Iramba. 
Here he halted and took a calm survey of his condition and 
prospects. He found that out of the more than three 
hundred men with which he had left the coast but one 
hundred and ninety-four remained. 

Sickness, desertion and battle had reduced his number 
over a third before he had reached the point where his 
actual labors were to commence. It was not a pleasant 
look-out ; for, although two hundred men, well armed with 
rifles, made a formidable force in a country where only 



STANLEY^S CONTROLLING FAITH. 399 

arrows and spears were used, still this heavy ratio of loss 
must stop or the expedition stop. He was not in a country 
where he could recruit soldiers, and each one lost was a 
dead loss, and thousands of miles of exploration lay before 
him, in prosecuting which he knew not how many battles 
would be fought, nor how much sickness have to be encoun- 
tered. It would not seem a difficult piece of arithmetical 
calculation to determine how long three hundred men 
would last if one-third disappeared in three months, or 
how many men it would require to prosecute his labors 
three years. But Stanley never seemed to act as though 
he thought defeat possible. Whether his faith was in 
God, himself or his star, it was nevertheless a strong and 
controlling faith. Still, now and then it leaks out that he 
was perfectly conscious of the desperate nature of his con- 
dition, and felt that disease, which carried off his friends 
and retainers, or the spear, might end, at any moment, his 
explorations and his life. 

Though out of Urimi at last, he found the natives of 
Iramba a very little improvement on those of the former 
district. Mirambo was their terror, and hence they were 
suspicious of all strangers. Again and again he was mis- 
taken for this terrible chieftain, and narrowly escaped 
being attacked. In fact, this formidable warrior was 
fighting at one time within a day's march of him. 

Urukuma was the next district he entered after Iramba, 
and he found it thickly peopled and rich in cattle. It 
consisted for the most part of rolling plains, with scattered 
chains of jagged hills. He was on the slope that led to the 
Nyanza, and the descent was so gradual, that he expected 
to find the lake, whose exploration he designed to make 
thorough and complete, comparatively shallow, although it 
covered a vast area. At last he reached a little village, 
viot a hundred yards from the shore, and encamped. At 



400 A NEW COTJNTEY. 

tliis point he describes tlie topograj^liy of the new country 
he had passed over. He says : 

" As far as Western Ugogo I may -pass over without at- 
tempting to describe the country, as readers may obtain a 
detailed account of it from ^ How I Found Livingstone.' 
Thence north is a new country to all, and a brief descrip- 
tion of it may be interesting to students of African 
geography. 

^' North of Mizanza a level plain extends as far as the 
frontier of Urandawi, a distance of thirty-five miles (Eng- 
lish). At Mukondoku the altitude, as indicated by two 
first-rate aneroids, was two thousand eight hundred feet. 
At Mtiwi, twenty miles north, the altitude was two thou- 
sand eight hundred and twenty^five feet. Diverging west 
and north-west, we ascend the slope of a lengthy mountain 
wall, apparently, but which, uj)on arriving at the summit, 
we ascertain to be a wide plateau, covered with foreets. 
This 23lateau has an altitude of three thousand eight hund] ed 
feet at its eastern extremity ; but, as it extends westward it 
rises to a heio^it of four thousand five hundred feet. It 
embraces all Uyanzi, Unyanyembe, Usukuma, Urimi and 
Iramba — in short, all that part of Central Africa lying 
between the valley of the Rufiji south and the Victo?:ia 
Nyanza north, and the mean altitude of this broad upland 
cannot exceed four thousand five hundred feet. From Mi- 
zanza to the Nyanza is a distance of nearly three hundred 
geographical miles ; yet, at no part of this long journey did 
the aneroids indicate a higher altitude than five thousand 
one hundred feet above the sea. 

" As far as Urimi, from the eastern edge of the plateau, 
the land is covered with a dense jungle of acacias, which, 
by its density, strangles all other Sj^ecies of vegetation. 
Here and there, only in the cleft of a rock, a giant euphor- 
bia may be seen, sole lord of its sterile domain. The soil 



GEOLOGICAL DESCEIPTION. 401 

is shallow, and consists of vegetable mould, mixed largely 
with sand and detritus of the bare rocks, which crown each 
knoll and ridge, and which testify too plainly to the vio- 
lence of the periodical rains. 

" In the basin of Matongo, in Southern Urimi, we were 
instructed by the ruins and ridges, relics of a loftier upland, 
of what has" been effected by nature m the course of long 
ages. No learned geological savant need ever expound to 
the traveler who views these rocky ruins, the geological 
history of this country. From a distance we viewed the 
glistening naked and riven rocks as a singular scene ; but 
when we stood among them, and noted the appearance of 
the rocky fragments of granite, gneiss and jiorphyry peeled 
as it were rind after rind, or leaf after leaf, like an arti- 
choke, until the rock was wasted away, it seemed as if 
Dame Nature has left these relics, these hilly skeletons, to 
demonstrate her laws and career. It seemed to me as if 
she said, ^ Lo, and behold this broad basin of Matongo, with 
its teeming villages and herds of cattle and fields of corn, 
surrounded by these bare rocks — in primeval time this 
land was covered with water, it was the bed of a vast sea. 
The ^Yaters were dried, leaving a wide exj)anse of level 
land, upon which I caused heavy rains to fall five months 
out of each year during all the ages that have elapsed 
since first the hot sunshine fell upon the soil. The rains 
washed away the loose sand and made deep furrows in 
course of time, until in certain j)laces the rocky kernel 
under the soil began to appear. The furrows became 
enlarged, the waters frittered away their banks and con- 
veyed the earth away to lower levels, through which it 
wore away a channel, first through the soil and lastly 
through the rock itself, which you may see if you but 
walk to the bottom of that basin. You will there behold 

a channel worn tlirouo;h the solid rock some fifty feet in 
21 "^ ^ 



402 PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION. 

depth ; and as you look on that you will have some idea 
of the power and force of the tropical rains. It is through 
that channel that the soil robhed from these rocks has been 
carried away toward the Nyanza to fill its depths and in 
time make dry land of it. Now you may ask how came 
these once solid rocks, which are now but skeletons of hills 
and stony heaps, to be thus split into so many fragments ? 
Have you never seen the effect of water thrown upon lime ? 
The solid rocks have been broken or peeled in an almost 
similar manner. The tropic sun heated the face of these 
rocks to an intense heat, and the cold rain falling upon the 
heated surface caused them to split and peel as you see 
them/ 

"This is really the geological history of this region 
simply told. Kidge after ridge, basin after basin, from 
"Western Ugogo to the ISTyanza, tells the same tale ; but it 
is not until we enter Central Urimi, that w^e begin to marvel 
at the violence of the process by which nature has trans- 
formed the face of the land. For here the j)erennial 
springs and rivulets begin to unite and form rivers, after 
collecting and absorbing the moisture from the water-shed ; 
and these rivers, though but gentle streams during the dry 
season, become formidable during the rains. It is in Cen- 
tral Urimi that the Nile first begins to levy tribute upon 
Equatorial Africa, and if you look upon the map and draw 
a line east from the latitude of Ujiji to longitude, thirty-five 
degrees you will strike upon the sources of the Leewumbu, 
which is the extreme southern feeder of the Victoria 
Nyanza. 

" In Iramba, between Mgongo Tembo and Mombiti, we 
came upon what must have been in former times an arm 
of the Victoria Nyanza. It is called the Lumauiberri 
Plain, after a river of that name, and is about forty miles 
in wddth. Its altitude is three thousand seven hundred 



THE SHIMEEYU RIVER. 40^ 

and seventy-five feet above the sea and but a few feet above 
Victoria Nyanza. We were fortunate in crossing tbc 
broad, shallow stream in the dry season, for during the 
masilca or rainy season the plain is converted into a wide 
lake. 

" The Leewumbu River, after a course of a hundred and 
seventy-five miles, becomes known as the Monaugh River, 
in Usukuma. After another run of a hundred miles, it is 
converted into Shimeeyu, under which name it enters the 
Victoria east of this port of Kagehyi. Roughly the Shi- 
meej u may be said to have a length of three hundred and 
fifty miles." 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

EXPLORING THE VICTORIA NYANZA. 

MTSTEBIXG HIS FOECE— THE DEATH ROLL— SELECTING 'a CREW OF ELEVEN MKN, HE SETS 
SAIL— LEAVES THE CAMP IN CHARGE OF POCOKE AND BARKER—" SPEICE'S BAY "—COASTING 
NORTHWARD— SHIMEEYU EIVER— A LARGE ISLAND— DESCRIPTION OP THE SHORES AND 
PEOPLE— STRANGE STORIES TOLD HIM— A LONELY CHANNEL— SUPERSTITION OF THE NATIVES 
— " BRIDGE ISLAND "— UNDER THE EQUATOR— STANLEY LOOKED UPON AS A BEING FRO.V 
ANOTHER WORLD— FLEEING FROM HIPPOPOTAMI— TREACHERY— A NARROW ESCAPE— THREB 
QUARTERS OF THE LAKE THOROUGHLY EXPLORED. 

STANLEY felt, as he stood and looked off on the broad 
expanse of water, like one who had achieved a great 
victory, and said that the wealth of the universe could not 
then bribe him to turn back from his work. The boat of 
a white man had never been launched on its surface, and 
he longed to see the Lady Alice afloat, that he might 
change the guesses of Livingstone, Speke and others, into 
certainty. He had started to complete Livingstone's un- 
finished work, and now he was in a fair way to do it. How 
much Cameron, who was somewhere in the interior on the 
same mission, had accomplished, he did not know, he only 
knew that with no boat at his command, like the Lady 
Alice, that he had transported through so many hundreds 
of miles of jungle, his movements would be very much 
crippled. 

He now mustered his entire force, to see what he had to 
rely on before setting out, and found it to consist of three 
white men and one hundred andsixWanguanasoldiers, twen- 
ty-eight having died since leaving Itwru thirty days before, 
or at an average of nearly one a day. This was a gloomy 
prospect. Before beginning his real work one-half of his 

404 



BTRANGE TALES OF DWARFS AND GIANTS. 405 

entire expedition had disappeared. Dysentery had been 
the great scourge that had thinned their ranks so fearfully. 
Stanley in the first place was not a physician, while even 
those remedies which ordinarily might have proved effica- 
cious were rendered well-nigh useless by the necessity of 
constant marching. Kest alone would have cured a great 
many, but he felt compelled to march. Whether the ne- 
cessity for marching with the rapidity he did, was suffi- 
ciently urgent to justify him in sacrificing so many lives, 
he doubtless is the best judge. These poor men were not 
accustomed to travel at the rate he kept them moving. 
Had they marched as leisurely as an Arab caravan, they 
would have been nine months or a year in making the dis- 
tance which Stanley had accomplished in one hundred and 
three days. He was at last on the lake that Baker hoped 
to reach with his steam vessels, and here he expected to 
meet Gordon, his successor, but he evidently had not yet 
arrived, for the natives told him that no boats had been 
seen on the water. They related strange tales, however, of 
the people inhabiting the shor^es. One told him of a race 
of dwarfs, another of a tribe of giants, and another still of 
a people who kept a breed of dogs so large that even Staji- 
ley's mastiffs were small in comparison. How much or 
little of this was true, he, of course, could not tell, still it 
excited his curiosity, and increased his desire to explore 
the country. 

He reached the lake on the 28th of 'February, and in 
eight days had everything ready, and launched his boat. 
He selected ten good oarsmen, who, with the steersman 
and himself, composed the boat's crew, and the whole force 
with which he was to overcome all the difficulties that he 
might encounter. 

The camp was left in charge of Frank Pocoke and 
young Barker. Naming the large body of water, into 



406 NAMING SPEKE GULF. 

which the Shimeeyu and Euan a Elvers flowed; Speke Gulf, 
in honor of the distinguished explorer, he sailed east 
along the irregular coast. To-day j)assing a district thinly 
populated, to-morrow a rugged hill country, through which 
the elephants wandered in immense droves, and of course, 
thronged with elej^hant hunters, he passed various tribes, 
until he came to the mouth of the Euano Eiver, discharg- 
ing a large volume of water into Speke Gulf, but noth- 
ir.g in comparison with the Shimeeyu and the Kagern, the 
two great river supplies of the lake. The former is tlie 
largest of all, and at its mouth a mile v/ide. Its length is 
three hundred and seventy miles and is^ he says, the ex- 
tieme southern source of the Nile, thus settling a vexed 
question. The gulf he named Speke Bay is on the north- 
eastern side, and where he crossed it about tAvelve miles 
wide. Sterile plains succeeded barren mountains, thin 
lines of vegetation along the borders of the lake alone giv- 
iitg space for cultivation, came and went until they reached 
the great island of Ukerewe, divided from the main-land 
only by a narrow channel. This was a true oasis, for it 
was covered with herds of cattle, and verdue, and fruits, and 
rich in ivory. He found the king an amiable man, and 
his subjects a peaceful, commercial people. Although this 
was a large island, more than forty miles long, the king 
owned several of the neighboring islands. Nothing of 
imj^ortance occurred on this voyage, as day after day they 
wound in and ou^ along the deej)ly corrugated coast or 
sailed by islands, the people on shore all being friendly. 
They at length came in sight of the high table-land 
of Majita, which Speke thought to be an island, but which 
Stanley demonstrated, by actual survey, to be only a 
promontory. It rises some three thousand feet above the 
level of the lake, and is surrounded by low brown plains, 
which, to the distant observer, resembles water. 



PRAISES TO GOSHI. 407 

Stanley continued his course along the eastern shore of 
the lake, proceeding northerly, and at last reached the 
coast of the Uriri country, a district of pastoral land 
dotted over with fine cattle. Bordering on this is Ugegeya, 
a land of fables and wonders, the " El Dorado " of slave 
hunters and traders in ivory, or it is the natural home of 
the elephant, which is found here in great numbers. He 
first got sight of it in crossing a broad bay, rising in a 
series of tall mountains before him. From their base the 
country rolls away to the east in one vast plain twenty-five 
miles wide, over which roam great herds of cattle, getting 
their own living and furnishing plenty of meat to the 
indolent inhabitants. Stanley constantly inquired of the 
natives concerning the country inland, its character and 
people, and was told many wonderful stories, in which it 
was impossible to say how much fable was mixed. Among 
other things, they reported that about fifteen days' 
march from this place, were mountains that spouted forth 
smoke. 

Keeping north, he says : " We passed between the Island 
TIgingo and the gigantic mountains of Ugegeya, at whose 
base the Lady Alice seems to crawl like a mite in a huge 
cheese, while we on board admire the stupendous height, 
and wonder at the deathly silence which prevails in this 
solitude, where the boisterous winds are hushed and the 
turbulent waves are as tranquil as a summer dream. The 
natives, as they pass, regard this spot with superstition, as 
well they might, for the silent majesty of these dumb, tall 
mounts awe the very storms to peace. Let the tempests 
bluster as they may on the spacious main beyond the cape, 
in this nook, sheltered by tall Ugingo isle ?~,d lofty Goshi 
in the main-land, they inspire no fear, it is this refuge 
which Goshi promises the distressed canoemen that causes 
^ them to sing praises of Goshi, and to cheer one another 



408 BRIDGE ISLAND. 

when wearied and benighted that Goshi is near to protect 
them." 

Sailing in and out among the clustering islands, they see 
two low isolated islands in the distance, and make toward 
them to camp there for the night. "There," says Stanley, 
" under the overspreading branches of a mangrove tree we 
dream of unquiet waters, and angry surfs, and threatening 
rocks, to find ourselves next morning tied to an island, 
which, from its peculiarity, I called Bridge Island. "While 
seeking a road to ascend the island, to take bearings, I dis- 
covered a natural bridge of basalt, about twenty feet in 
length and twelve in breadth, under which one might 
repose comfortably, and from one side see the waves lashed 
to fury and spend their strength on the stubborn rocks, 
which form the foundation of the arch, while from the 
other we could see the boat, secure under the lee of the 
island, resting on a serene and placid surface and shaded 
by mangrove branches from the hot sun of the equator. 
Its neighborhood is remarkable only for a small cave, the 
haunt of fishermen." After taking a survey of the neigh- 
boring main-land, he hoisted sail and scudded along the 
coast before a freshening breeze. At noon he found him- 
self, by observation, to be under the equator. Seeing an 
opening in the lake that looked like the mouth of a river, 
he sailed into it to find it was only a deep bay. Coming in 
sight of a village, he anchored near it and tried to make 
friends with some wild-looking fishermen on the shorie, but 
the naked savages only " stared at them from under pent- 
houses of hair, and hastily stole away to tell their families 
of the strange apparition they had seen." 

This sail c^ one hundred miles along the coast of this 
vast lake, though somewhat monotonous and tame in its 
details to the reader, furnished one of the most interesting 
episodes in Stanley's life — not because the scenery was new , 



A PHENOMENON TO THE NATIVES. 409 

and beautiful, but because he, with his white sail, and fire- 
arms, and strange dress, was as strange and wonderful to 
these natives as was Columbus, with his ship, and cannon, 
and cavaliers to the inhabitants of the New World. Though 
often differing in appearance, and language, and manner, 
they were almost uniformly friendly, and in the few cases 
where they proved hostile, they were drunk, which makes 
civilized men, as well as savages, quarrelsome. It was fre- 
quently very difficult to win their confidence, and often 
Stanley would spend hours in endeavoring to remove their 
suspicions. In this wild, remote home, their lives pass on 
without change, each generation treading in the footsteps 
of the preceding one — no j)rogress, no looking forward to 
increased knowledge or new developments. There were no 
new discoveries to arouse their mental faculties, no aspira- 
tions for a better condition, and they were as changeless as 
their tropical climate. Hence, to them the sudden appear- 
ance of this strange jDhenomenon on their beautiful lake 
could not be accounted for. It had seemingly dropped 
from the clouds, and at the first discharge of a pistol they 
were startled and filled with amazement. 

Stanley, whether rowing or sailing, kept close to the 
shore, that nothing worthy of note should escape him, fre- 
quently landing to ascertain the name of the district he 
was in, the bays he crossed, the mountains he saw, and the 
rivers that emptied into the lake. In short, he omitted 
nothing which was necessary to a comjolete survey and 
knowledge of this hitherto unknown body of water. 

After leaving this bay, they came in a short .time to a 
river which was full of hippopotami. Two huge fellows 
swam so near the boat that Stanley was afraid they would 
attack it, and ordered the men to pull away from them. 
Although hunting these huge beasts might be very exciting 
gport, and a tolerably safe one in boats properly built, to 



410 A FOREST OF SPEARS. 

expose the Lady Alice, with her slender cedar sides, to 
their tusks would have been a piece of folly close akin 
to madness. Her safety was of more consequence than all 
the hippopotami in Africa. He was an explorer, not a 
hunter ; and to risk all the future of the former to gratify 
the pleasure of the latter would have shown him unfit to 
command so important an expedition as this. Like the 
hoat that carried Caesar and his fortunes, the Lady Alice 
bore in her frail sides destinies greater than the imagination 
can conceive. So hoisting sail they caught the freshening 
I'reeze and flew along the ever-changing shore lined with 
villages, out of which swarmed a vast crowd of people, 
showing a much more densely populated district than they 
liad yet seen. He found the name of it to be Mahita ; and 
wishing to learn the names of some of the villages he saw, 
the boat was turned toward shore and anchored within fifty 
yards of it, but with a cable long enough to let them drift 
to within a few feet of it. Some half a dozen men wearing 
small shells above their elbows and a circle round their 
1 leads came down to the beach, opening a conversation 
with them. Stanley learned the name of the country, but 
\hej refused to tell him anything more till he landed. 
While getting ready to do so, he noticed the numbers on 
the shore increased with astonishing rapidity, and seemed 
to be greatly excited. This aroused his suspicions, and he 
ordered the rowers to pull off again. It was lucky he did, 
for he had scarcely put three lengths between him and the 
shore, when suddenly out of the bushes on each side of the 
spot where he was to land arose a forest of sj^ears. 

Stanley did not intend to go away entirely, but lie off 
till they became less excited, but this evidence of treachery 
caused him to change his mind, and he ordered the sail to 
be hoisted, and moved away toward a point at the mouth 
of the cove, which, with the wind as it was blowing, they 



A NARROW ESCAPE. 411 

could but little more than clear. The negroes seeing this, 
Bent up a loud shout, and hurried off to reach it before the 
boat did. Stanley penetrating their design, ordered the 
sail to be lowered and the rowers to pull dead to windward. 
The discomfited savages looked on in amazement to see the 
prize slip through their fingers so easily. It w^as a narrow 
escape, for had Stanley landed, he would doubtless have 
been overpow^ered, before he could use his weapons, and 
killed. 

It was now late in the afternoon, and the savages made 
no attempt to follow them, and at dusk, coming to a small 
island, they tied up and camped for the night, lulled to 
sleep by the murmur of the waves on the beach. 

The next day continuing their course, they at last sailed 
iifto the bay, which forms the north-eastern extremity of 
the Victoria Nyanza. The eastern side of this bay is lined 
with bold hills and ridges, but at the extreme end w^here the 
Tagama River comes in, the country is flat. The expedi- 
tion now began to move westward in its slow circumnavi- 
gation of the lake, and came at length to Muiwanda. 
Here they found the savages friendly, and they landed 
and obtained from them, at fair prices, such provisions and 
vegetables as they desired. They also gave Stanley all the 
information they could of the neighboring country. They 
told him that the name of the bay in which they rode, and 
which w^as the extreme northern limit of the lake, was 
Baringo. They had evidently not been great travelers or 
much visited by any tribes living away from their own 
coast, for they said that they had neVer heard of any 
other lake great or small, except that one — the Nyanza. 
Considering that this whole central region of Africa is 
dotted with lakes, and that the Tanganika, an inland sea, 
is not three hundred miles distant, it is evident they must 
li~'e very much isolated from any but their own people. 



412 THOROUGH WORK. 

Stanley had now surveyed the southern, eastern and north- 
eastern shores of the lake, and had taken thirty-seven ob- 
servations and entered almost every nook and cove of this 
vast body of water. He had corrected the map of Speke, 
made on the report of the natives — ^proved that he was 
wrong in his latitude of the lake, and taken such ample 
notes that he could make out an accurate chart of that 
portion he had thus traversed. He makes the extreme 
eastern point of the lake end in 34° 35' east longitude, and 
33' 43" north latitude. 

After he had fir^ished his exploration thus far, Stanley 
goes over his route, giving a general description of the 
country, the location and approximate size of the various 
districts, and general character of the inhabitants. The 
north shore he found indented with deep bays, and so com- 
pletely land-locked, that they might easily be mistaken for 
separate lakes, while the islands clustered so thickly and 
closely to the shore that unless thoroughly examined, would 
be taken for portions of the main-land. But Stanley has 
traced it out so plainly, that the outline of the shore is as 
distinct as that of Lake Ontario. 



CHAPTEE XXVI. 



EXPLOKATION OF THE YICTOEIA NYANZA. 



STANLEY THE FIRST WHITE MAN THAT EVER SAILED AROUND IT— ESTABLISHES THE SOUTHERM 
i»OURCE OF THE NILE— TREACHERY OF THE NATIVES— STANLEY'S REVENGE— A HOSTILE FLEET 
(SCATTERED BY HIM— THREE MEN KILLED— TWO SINGULAR ISLANDS— THE RIPON FALLS— THE 
NILE— CURIOUS INLETS — MTESA, KING OF UGANDA — HIS RECEPTION OF STANLEY— IMPOSING 
CEREMONIES— A NOBLE NATIVE MONARCH— HIS CAPITAL— HIS ARMY AND LARGE TERRITORY- 
HALF CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY BY STANLEY— ANXIOUS TO HAVE MISSIONARIES SENT TO 
HIS COUNTRY— STANLEY'S MODE OF SENDING THEM AND THE KIND OF MEN THEY SHOULD BE— 
A MISSION ESTABLISHED AND BROKEN UP— FALSE STATEMENTS IN THE PAPERS ABOUT IT 
CORRECTED. 



THE voyage continued along the northern and then 
western shore of the lake, revealing at almost every 
turn new features of scenery and some new formation of 
land or new characteristic of the people, till the journey 
was like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope. A tribe friendly 
and trusting would be succeeded by one suspicious or 
treacherous, so that it was impossible to be governed by 
any general rule, and Stanley was compelled to be con- 
stantly on the alert, watching the motions of each tribe 
without reference to the actions of the last, and laying his 
plans accordingly. He continued his course down the west- 

413 



414 TREACHEROUS NATIVES. 

ern shore toward his camp from which he started, finding 
this side more densely populated than the others, and the 
tribes that occupied it of a more independent, fearless char- 
acter, and more inclined to hostilities. At Uvuma, an inde- 
pendent country and the largest on the Victoria Nyanza, 
the hostility took a more determined form. The natives 
made signs of friendship to induce them to come near the 
shore. They did so, sailing up to a few yards of it. At 
that point a large mass of natives were hid behind the trees, 
who suddenly rose and hurled a shower of huge stones at 
the boat in order to sink it, several striking it. Stanley 
instantly ordered the helm to be put hard up, and the boat 
was quickly steered away from the dangerous spot, but not 
before Stanley, enraged at this act of treachery, leveled his 
revolver at the wretches and dropped one of them. Going 
on some miles farther, they entered a channel between 
some islands and the shore, where they discovered a fleet 
of canoes, thirteen in number, with over one hundred war- 
riors in them, armed with shells, and spears, and slings. 
The foremost one had some sweet potatoes aboard, which 
one of the natives held up as though he wished to trade. 
Stanley ordered the crew to cease rowing, but as the breeze 
was light the sail was kept up, but the progress was so slow 
that this canoe soon came up. While he was bargaining 
for the potatoes, the other boats approached and completely 
surrounded the Lady Alice and began to reach over and 
seize everything they could lay hands on. Stanley warned 
them away with his gun, when they jeered at him and im- 
mediately seized their spears, while one man held up a 
string of beads he had stolen and dared Stanley to catch 
him. With that promptness y^hich has many a time saved 
his life the latter drew his revolver and shot the villain 
dead. Spears instantly flashed in the air, but Stanley 
seizing his repeating rifle poured shot after shot into them. 



CURIOUS PHENOMENON. 415 

knocking over three of them in as many seconds, when the 
amazed warriors turned in flight. He then seized his ele- 
phant rifle and began to pour its heavy shot into their 
canoes, throwing them into the wildest confusion. As they 
now continued on their way, an occasional shot from the 
big gun waked the echoes of the shore to announce before- 
hand what treatment treachery would receive. As they 
kept on north they felt the current drawing them on, and 
soon they came to the Ripon Falls, their foam and thunder 
contrasting strangely with the quietness of the lake a short 
time before, and the silence and tranquility of the scene. 
It was the Nile starting on its long journey to the Mediter- 
ranean, fertilizing Egypt in its course. Coasting westeiiy, 
they came to the island of Krina, where they obtained 
guides to conduct them to King Mtesa, the most renowned 
king of the whole region. Sending messengers to announce 
to the king his arrival, Stanley continued to coast along 
Uganda, everywhere treated with kindness, so far as words 
went, but very niggardly in fact. 

He here observed a curious phenomenon. He discovered 
an inlet in which there was a perceptible tide, the water flow- 
ing north for two hours and then south for the same length 
of time. Gn asking the guides if this was usual, they said 
yes, and it was common to all the inlets on the coast di 
Uganda. At Beya they were welcomed by a fleet of canoes 
sent to conduct them to the king. 

On the 4th of April, Stanley landed, amid the waving of 
flags, volleys of musketry and shouts of two thousand 
people, assembled to receive him. The chief officer then 
conducted him to comfortable quarters, where, soon after, 
sixteen goats, ten oxen, and bananas, sweet potatoes, plan- 
tains, chickens, rice, milk, butter, etc., etc., in profuse 
quantities were sent him. 



416 MTESA, KING OF UGANDA. 



KING MTESA. 

In the afternoon, the king sent word that he was ready to 
receive him. Issuing from his quarters, Stanley found him- 
self in a street eighty feet broad and a half a mile long, lined 
with the personal guards, officers, attendants and retinue of 
the king, to the number of three thousand. At the farther 
end of this avenue was the king's residence, and as Stanley 
advanced he could dimly see the form of the king in the 
entrance, sitting in a chair. At every step volleys of mus- 
ketry were fired and flags waved, while sixteen drums 
beaten together kept up a horrible din. As he approached 
the house, the king, a tall, slender figure, dressed in Arab 
costume, arose and advancing held out his hand in silence, 
while the drums kept up their loud tattoo. They looked 
on each other in silence. Stanley was greatly embarrassed 
by the novelty of the situation, but soon the king, taking a 
seat, asked him to be seated also, while a hundred of his 
captains followed their example. Lifting his eyes to the 
king, Stanley saw a tall and slender man, but with broad, 
powerful shoulders. His eyes were large, his face intelli- 
gent and amiable, while his mouth and nose were a great 
improvement on those of the ordinary negro, 'being more 
like those of a Persian Arab. As soon as he began to 
speak, Stanley was captivated by his courteous, affable 
manner. He says he was infinitely superior to the sultan 
of Zanzibar, and impressed you as a colored gentleman 
who had learned his manners bv contact with civilized, cul- 
tivated men, instead of being, as he was, a native of Cen- 
tral Africa, who had never seen but three white men before 
in his life. Stanley was astonished at his native polish and 
he felt he had found a friend in this great king of this part 
of the country, where the tribal territories are usually so 
small. His kingdom extends through three degrees of 



A NATURAL BORN KING. 410 

longitude and almost as many of latitude. He professes 
Islamism now, and no cruelties are practised in his king- 
dom. He has a guard of two hundred men, renegadoes 
from Baker's expedition, and defalcators from Zanzibar, 
and the elite of his own kingdom. 

Behind his throne or arm-chair, stood his gun-bearers, 
shield-bearers and lance-bearers, and on either side were 
arranged his chief courtiers, governors of provinces, etc., 
while outside streamed away the long line of his warriors, 
beginning with the drummers and goma-beaters. Mtesa 
asked him many intelligent questions, and Stanley found 
that this was not his home, but that he had come there 
with that immense throng of warriors to shoot birds. In 
two or three days, he proposed to return to his capital at 
Ulagala or Uragara (it is difficult to tell which is right). 
The first day, for Stanley's entertainment, the king gave a 
grand naval review with eighty canoes, which made quite 
an imposing display, which the king with his three hun- 
dred wives and Stanley viewed from shore. The crews 
consisted of two thousand five hundred men or more. The 
second day, the king led his fleet in person to show his 
prowess in shooting birds. The third day, the troops were 
exercised at target practice, and on the fourth, the march 
was taken up for the capital. In him Stanley sees the 
hope of Central Africa. He is a natural born king and tries 
to imitate the manners, as he understands them, of Euro- 
pean monarchs. He has constructed broad roads which 
will be ready for vehicles whenever they are introduced. 
The road they traveled increased from twenty to one hun- 
dred and fifty feet as they approached the capital, which 
crowned a commanding eminence overlooking a beautiful 
country covered with tropical fruit and trees. Huts are 
not very imposing, but a tall flagstaff and an immense flag 

gave some dignity to the surroundings 
22 



420 THE king's palace. 

The capital is composed of a vast collection of huts 
on an eminence crowned by the royal quarters, around 
which ran five several palisades and circular courts, between 
w^hich and the city runs a circular road from one hun- 
dred to two hundred feet in width, from whence radiate 
six or seven magnificent avenues lined with gardens and 
huts. 

The next day, Stanley was introduced into the palace 
in state. The guards were clothed in white cotton dresses, 
while the chiefs were attired in rich Arab costumes. This 
palace was a large, lofty structure built of grass and cane^ 
while tall trunks of trees upheld the roof — covered inside 
with cloth sheeting. On the fourth day, the exciting news 
was received that another white man was approaching the 
capital. It proved to be Colonel Lerant de Bellfonds of the 
Egyptian service, ^\\\o had been dispatched by Colonel 
Gordon to make a treaty of commerce with the king and 
the khedive of Egypt. 

This Mtesa, we said, was a Mohammedan, having been 
converted by Khamis Bin Abdullah some four or five years 
before. This Arab, from Muscat, w^as a man of magnifi- 
cent presence, of noble descent, and very rich, and dressed 
in spendid Oriental costume. Mtesa became fascinated 
with him, and the latter stayed with the king over a year, 
giving him royal presents and dressing him in gorgeous 
attire. 

No wonder this brilliant stranger became to such a 
heathen a true missionary. But Stanley, in a conversation 
wdth the king, soon upset his new faith, and he agreed at 
once to observe the Christian as well as the Moslem Sab- 
bath, to which his captains also agreed. He, moreover, 
caused the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, 
and the Golden Bule, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself," to be written on a board for his daily perusal: 



A GOOD MT^IONARY NEEDED. 421 

In stating this remarkable fact, Stanley says : " Though I 
am no missionary, I shall begin to think I may become 
one if such success is so feasible ;" and exclaims, "Oh, that 
some pious, practical missionary would come here. What 
a field and harvest ripe for the sickle of the Gospel. 
Mtesa would give him everything he desired — houses, 
cattle, lands, ivory, etc. He might call a province his 
own in oi)e day." But he says he must not be a theological 
one, nor a missionary of creeds, but a practical Christian, 
tied to no church or sect, but simply profess God and His 
Son, and live a blameless life and be able to instruct them 
in building houses, cultivating land, and all those things 
that go to make up human civilization. Such a man, he 
says, would become the savior of Africa. He begged 
Stanley to tell them to come, and he would give them all 
they wanted. 

The subjects of this heathen king number not far from 
two millions, and Stanley affirms that one good missiona?;y 
among them would accomplish more toward the regenera- 
tion of Africa in one year than all other missionaries '')n 
the continent put together. He suggests that the mission 
should bring to Mtesa several suits of military clothos, 
heavily embroidered, pistols, swords, dinner service, etu., 
etc. This sounds rather strange to the modern missionary, 
and seems like trusting too much to " carnal weapons,'^ 
but it is eminently practical. Anything to give the mis- 
sionary a firm footing on which to begin his labors is 
desirable, if not wrong in itself or leading to wrong. For 
its own use the mission should, he says, bring also ham- 
mers, saws, augers, drills for blasting, and blacksmith and 
carpenter tools, etc., etc. In short, the missionary should 
not attempt to convert the black man to his religious views 
simply by preaching Christ, but that civilization, the hand- 
maiden of religion, should move side by side with it in 



422 FAILURE OF A FORMER MISSION. 

equal step. The practical effect of the missionary work, in 
order to influence the natives, must not be merely a moral 
change, which causes the convert to abjure the rites and 
follies of paganism, but to lift the entire people, whether 
converted or not to Christianity, to a higher plane of 
civilization. We know there are different theories on this 
subject, but we think that Stanley's mode might safely be 
tried. It was tried, after a fashion, almost immediately, 
but the station has been broken up and the missionaries 
murdered. 

Perhaps it is as good a place here as anywhere to cor- 
rect a wrong statement that has been going the rounds 
of the papers, which puts Stanley in a false light. It 
was not pretended that King Mtesa had anything to do 
with this outrage, but that a tribe with which Stanley 
had had a fight, killiug some of its number, committed 
it in revenge for what he did. The truth is, the mis- 
sion was established by some enthusiasts, and some three 
or four started with false views and hopes entirely. 
Only two of them reached the ground, one of them not 
being a minister. They were, however, well received, 
and allowed to go to work. The king, or chief of a 
neighboring tribe, had a daughter with whom a native 
fell in love. This man was repugnant to the father, 
and he refused to let him have his daughter for a wife. 
The consequence was they eloped and fled to the island 
on which the missionaries were stationed, and placed 
themselves under their protection and remained with 
them. The enraged savage heard of this, and doubtless 
believing that the missionaries had connived at the elope- 
ment — certainly harbored the fugitives against his wish — 
attacked the station and murdered the missionaries. How 
much or how little they were to blame, or if not guilty 
of any wrong, how unwisely they acted, they unfortu- 



AN ACT OF WILD JUSTICE. 423 

nately do not live to tell us. But Stanley's conduct in 
that region had nothing to do with the tragedy. It was 
an act of wild justice by an enraged and savage chief- 
tain, and militates in no way against carrying out the pro- 
ject of Stanley. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



WANLEY CONTINrES HIS EXPLORATIONS— DRUNKEN NATIVES— A SrSPiaorS RECEPTION— A 
PLACEFUL NICIir— A WILD WAKING L'P— A STARTLING SPECTACLE— HURRIED DEPARTURE— 
MAGAoSA'S FLr:ET— L.VCK of FOOD— a fearful storm— EUMBIREH ISLAND— a BRIGHT PROS- 
PECT-STANLEY ENrr.ArPED— IN deadly peril— a CROWD of demons— a fearful night— 
raoMPT action— barely saved— swift and terrible revenge— a frightful storm- 
refuge island— A crATrruL camp— provisions secured— another storm— a staunch 

boat— STELE ING FCR CALT—T: IS JOYFUL GREETING— EXCITEMENT OP THE MEN— THE SECRET 
OF THE men's AFFECTION FOR HIM. 



rriHOUGH the royal hospitality was very grateful after 
-L his long toils and the intercourse with a white man in 
tliat remote land was refreshing, and he longed to rest, yet 
Stanley felt he must be about his work. To finish this 
would require much time, and he had now been long 
al)sent from his men, who might prove intractable while 
he was away, and he was anxious to get back, for the 
exploration of this lake was only the beginning of what he 
proposed to do. , 

With two canoes belonging to his friend, King Mtesa 
accompanying him as an escort until the grand admiral of 
his sable majesty, Magassa, who, with thirty canoes, had 
been detached for his service, should overtake him, he set 
Bail from the river and camped that night on a smooth, 
sandy beach, at a point called Kagya. The natives who 
lived there received them in a friendly, and for African 
negroes, hospitable manner. Sttinley took this as a good 
augury of the reception he should meet with along the 
coast of Usongora, which he designed to explore. 

In the morning he again set sail, and sweeping leisurely 
along, came in the afternoon to the village of Makongo. 

424 



A SUSPICIOUS RECEPTION. 425 

As the Lady Alice approached the shore, he saw a crowd 
of naked savages squatted on the ground, sucking the 
everlasting pombe, or beer, through a straw, just as white 
men do punch or a sherry cobbler. As the boat reached 
the shore the chief, with the vacant stare of a drunkard, 
arose and reeled toward him and welcomed him in a 
friendly though maudlin manner. The natives also ap- 
peared good-natured and quite content with their arrival. 
After they had satisfied their curiosity by examining him 
ai/d his boat, they went away, leaving him to arrange his 
camp for the niglit and prepare his supper. The sun went 
d(>wn in glory beyond the purple mountains — a slight 
ripple dimpled the surface of the lake, while slender 
columns of smoke ascended here and there along the shore 
from the huts of the natives ; and all was calm and j)eace- 
fui, tlicugh wild and lonely.. As night came down, and 
tlie stars, one by one, came out in the tropical sky, Stanley 
and his chosen men stretched themselves on their mats, 
and, unsuspicious of danger, fell asleep. About ten o'clock 
he vras suddenly awakened by a loud and hurried beating 
of drums, with ever and anon a chorus of shrieks and yells 
that rung through the clear, still air with a distinctness 
and sharpness that made the blood shiver. Stanley imme- 
diately aroused his men, and they listened, wondering what 
it foreboded. The lake was still below and the heavens 
calm and serene above, but all around it seemed as if 
demons of the infernal regions were out on their or2:ies. 
Stanley thought if was the forerunner of an attack on the 
camp, but Mtesa's men, the Yv^aganda, told him that the 
drumming and yelling were the wild w^elcome of the 
natives to a stranger. He doubted it, for he had seen too 
many savage tribes, and knew their customs too well to 
believe this blood-curdling, discordant din was a welcome 
to him. 



420 STANLEY EXTEAPPED. 

It is strange that he did not at once quietly launch his 
boat and lie off the rest of the night a Httle way ficm the 
shore till morning, and see what it all meant. It would 
seem that ordinary prudence would have joromptcd this. 
His neglect to do so, very nearly cost him liis life, and 
ended there his explorations. For some reason or other, 
which he docs not give, he determined to remain where he 
w-as, contenting himself with the jorecaution of placing his 
weapons close beside him, and directing his eleven men to 
load their guns and put them under their mats. He lay 
down again, but not to sleep, for all night long the furious 
beat of drums and unearthly yells rung out over the lake, 
keeping him not only awake, but anxious. At day- 
break he arose, and as lie stepped out of his tent, he started 
as if he had seen an apparition, for in the gray light of 
morning, he saw five hundred naked, motionless forms, 
with bows, shields and spears, standing in a semicircle 
around him, and completely cutting him off from his boat 
and the lake. It w^as a fearful moment, and to his inquiry 
wdiat it meant, no answer was given. There was no shout- 
ing or yelling, none of the frantic gesticulations so com- 
mon to the African savage. On the contrary, they wore a 
calm and composed, though stern and determined aspect. 
Shoulder to shoulder like a regiment of soldiers they stood, 
the forest of spears above them glittering in the early light. 
There was nothing to be done — Stanley was entrapped, and 
with the first attempt to escape or seize his rifle would be 
transfixed by a hundred spears. It was too late to repent 
the folly of not heeding the w^arning of the night before, 
and so he calmly stood and faced the crowd of stern malig- 
nant faces. For some minutes this solitary white man met 
glance for glance, when the drunken chief of the d::y be- 
fore stalked into the semicircle, and with a stick which he 
held in his hand forced back the savages by flourishing it 



A HURRIED DEPARTURE. 42? 

in their faces. He then advanced, and striking the boat a 
furious blow, shouted "be off/' and to facilitate matters, took 
hold aad helped launch it. Stanley was only too glad to 
obey him, and his heart bounded within him as he felt the 
ko^l gliding into deep water, and soon a hundred rods were 
beUveen him and the savages that lined the shore. The 
Wagonda were still on the beach, and Stanley prepared to 
sweep it with a murderous fire the moment they were at- 
tacked. So dense was the crowd of natives, that had he 
fired at that close range, he would have mowed tbem down 
with fearful slaughter. But although there was much loud 
wrangling and altercation, they were, at length, allowed to 
embark, and followed him as he railed away toward the 
i Ae of Musua. He had learned a lesson that he did not 
soon forget. 

The whole had been a strange proceeding, and why he 
was not killed, when so completely in tlieir power, can be 
accounted for only on the ground that they were in Mtesa's 
dominions, and feared he would take terrible revenge for 
the murder. Later in the day this drunken chief came to 
visit him on the island, and demanded why lie had come 
and what he wanted. Being told, he went away, and sent 
three branches of bananas, and left him and his party to 
their fate. They rested here quietly till afternoon, when 
they saw Magassa's fleet, coming slowly down the lake, steer- 
ing for a neighboring island. The canoes were beached and 
the men disembarked and began to prepare their camp 
for the night. Stanley was getting impatient at these 
delays, and thinking he would quicken Megassa's move- 
ments by hastening forward, he set sail for Alice Island, 
thirty-five miles distant. The two chiefs, with the escort- 
ing canoes, accompanied him for about a mile and a half, 
but, getting alarmed at the aspect of the weather, turned 
back, shouting, as they did so, that as soon as it moderated 



423 LACK OF FOOD. 

tliey would follow. Bowling along before a spanking breeze, 
the little craft danced gayly over the cresting waves, and 
when night came down and darkness fell on the lonely lake, 
kept steadily on and, finally, at midnight reached the island, 
where they luckily struck upon a sheltered cove and came to 
anchor. When morning dawned they found they were 
almost against the base of a beetling cliff, with over- 
hans-ins: rocks all around them, dotted with the fires of 
the natives. These came down to the shore holding green 
wisps of grass in their hands as tokens of friendliness. 
Stanley and his men were hungry, and now rejoiced in the 
prospect of a good breakfast. But these friendly natives, 
s;-eing their need, became so extorti?5nate in their demands 
that they would not trade with them, and Stanley deter- 
mined to stear for Bumbirch Island, twenty-five miles 
distant, and obtain food. 

The breeze was light and they made slow headway, and 
it w^as evidently going to be a long sail to the island. As 
the sun went down, huge black clouds began to roll up the 
sky, traversed by lightning, while the low growl of thunder 
foretold a coming storm. As the clouds rose higher and 
higher the lightning became more vivid, and the thunder 
broke with startling j)eals' along the water, and soon the 
rain came down in torrents, drenching them to the skin. 
The waves began to rise while darkness, black as mid- 
night, settled down on the lake. The little craft tossed 
wildly on the water, and the prospect before them looked 
gloomy enough. Fortunately, about midnight, they came 
wpon Pocoke Island, and anchored under its lee amid 
thunder and lightning, and rain and the angry roar of 
the surf on every side. All night long the flashes lit up 
the angry scene, while the heavy, tropical thunder shook 
the bosom of the lake. The haven they had reached was 
BO poor a i^rotection that all hands were kept bailing, to 
prevent the boat from foundering at her anchor 



A FEARFUL NIGHT. 429 

We have a very faint idea in our northern latitudes of 
what a thunder-storm is in the tropics, and the slight 
affair that Stanley made of it is one of those apparently 
insignificant and yet most striking illustrations of his 
character. Storms on the water — starvation on land — 
deadly perils of all kinds are spoken of by him as one 
would speak of the ordinary incidents of travel. He has 
no time, and apparently no taste, for sensational writing ; 
or perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say — in his cool 
courage, calm self-reliance and apparent contempt of death 
he does not see the dramatic side of the scenes in which he 
ptirforms so important a part. The most tragic events — 
the most perilous crises are treated by him as ordinary 
events. An escape so narrow that one's heart stops beating 
aw he contemplates it, he narrates with as much coolness 
and apparent indifference as he would his deliverance from 
a disagreeable companion. 

In the morning, Stanley, as he looked around him and 
saw the surf breaking on every side, ordered the anchor up 
and the sail hoisted, for this was too dangerous a place for 
the Lady Alice. The thunder-storm had passed, and a 
stiff north-east breeze had sprung up, before which he 
bowled swiftly along, and in three hours reached the 
mouth of a quiet cove near the village of Kajuri, at the 
south-eastern extremity of Bumbirch Island. After the 
storm and peril of the last forty-eight hours, it was a wel- 
come sight that greeted them. The green slopes of this 
gem set in the sparkling waters were laden with fruits and 
covered with cattle. Groves of bananas, herds of cattle 
lazily feeding, and flocks of goats promised an abundance 
of food ; and Stanley and his men, as they drew near the 
lovely, inviting shore, reveled in anticipation of the rest 
and good cheer awaiting them. Filled with the m^^st 
peaceful intentions themselves — their hearts made glad' at 



430 TEEACHEEOUS NATIVES. 

the sight of the bountiful provisions before them — they 
(lid not dream of any hostility, when suddenly they heard 
a wild, slirill war-cry from the plateau above the huts of. 
the village near the shore, on which were gathered a crowd 
of excited men. Stanley was surprised at this unexpected 
hostile demonstration, and halted just as the boat was about 
to ground, to ascertain what it meant. The savages in the 
meantime were rushing wildly toward the shore in front 
of where the boat lay rocking on the water. As they 
approached, they suddenly changed their warlike attitude, 
and, ceasing their loud yells, assumed a friendly manner, 
and invited them to land in tones and gestures so kind 
and affable that Stanley's first suspicions were at once dis- 
armed, and he ordered the rowers to send the boat ashore. 
But the moment the keel grated on the pebbly beach, all 
this friendliness of manner changed, and the naked savages 
rushed into the water, and, seizing the boat, lifted it up 
bodily and, with all on board, carried it high and dry ou 
the bank. 

Stanley was terribly aroused at this sudden treachery, 
and reckless of consequences, determined to avenge it, and 
twice he raised his revolver to shoot down the audacious 
wretches, but his crew begged him to desist, declaring 
earnestly that these people were friends, and that if he 
would wait a few minutes, he would see that all was right. 
He accordingly sat down in the stern sheets and waited to 
Bee the end. In the meantime, the savages came leaping 
from the hill-sides, tossing their naked limbs in the air, 
and uttering loud yells, till a wild, frantic multitude com- 
pletely surrounded the boat in which Stanley still sat 
unmoved and calm. The wretches seemed crazed with 
passion, and poised their spears as if about to strike him, ai. J 
drew their arrow^s to the head, one discharge of which w^ould 
Uave riddled Stanley, struck the boat by his side with 



SEIZE Stanley's oaks. 433 

their spear handles, gnashed their teeth, foamed at the 
mouth, and yelled till their eyes seemed bursting from 
their sockets. Stanley, however, never moved nor uttered 
a. word. His life did not seem worth a thought in that 
frenzied, demoniacal crowd. But resistance and expostula- 
tion were alike useless, and he could do iiotaing but wait 
the final assault, and then sell his life dearly as possible. 
For some strange, unaccountable reason, their cliief, 
Thekha, kejDt them fi'oni the last act of violence, and at 
last so quieted them that Stanley calmly asked liim how 
much he demanded to let him go. The most curious part of 
this whole affair is, that the chief condescended to enter 
into negotiations with Stanley. Everything the latter had 
was in the boat, and he had only to give the word, and in 
five minutes all was his. But instead of doing this,.l.e 
struck up a bargain witfi Stanley, and agreed to let him off 
for four cloths and ten necklaces of large beads. Stanley 
at once took them from his packages and gave them to 
him. But no sooner had he received them, than he gave 
a quick order to his men to seize the oars of the boat, hi 
a twinkling, before Stanley had time to think what they 
were about, the oars were caught My and carried awii3\ 
The natives seeing through the treacherous trick, enjoyed 
it thoroughly, and their loud laughing jeers roused all the 
devil in Stanley's nature, but he still said nothing. Having 
got possession of the oars, they thought he was helpless as 
a tortoise on his back, and became qniet, seemingly en- 
joying the white man's helplessness. Having no fear of 
his escape, they at noon leisurely walked to their huts to get 
their noonday meal, and to discuss what the next move 
should be. Stanley says he was not idle, he wished to 
hnpose on the savages by his indifferent manner, but he 
was all the while planning how to escape, and the best 
mode of meeting the attack when it came. 



434 Stanley's suspicions. 

While the savages were at their dinner, a negress came 
near them and told them to eat honey with Thekha, as it 
was the only way to save their lives, for he had determined 
to kill them and take everything they had. Stanley per- 
mitted his coxswain to go to Thekha and make the proposi- 
tion to him to eat honey. The wily chief told him to be 
at ease, no harm was intended them, and next day he 
would eat honey with them. The coxswain returned de- 
lighted, and reported the good news. But Stanley checked 
the coniidence of the men, and told them that nothing but 
their own wit and courage could save their lives. This was 
all a trick, and their next move w^ould be to seize their guns, 
as they had the oars, when they woiild be helpless, and by 
no means to leave the boat, but be prepared at any mo- 
ment when he should give the word to act. The men saw 
at once the truth of Stanley's sus2)icions, and kept close by 
him. 

Thus nearly three long hours passed away, neither he 
nor his crcAV doing or attempting to do anything. Put, 
about three o'clock, the war-drums began again their hori'id 
din, and soon the loping, naked savages wore seen runnhjg 
from every quarter, and in a half an hour five hundred 
warriors had gathered around the chief within thirty paces 
of the boat. He was sitting down, and when the warriors 
were all assembled he made them an address. As soon as 
he had finished, about fifty of them dashed up to Stanley's 
men, and seizing his drum, bore it back in triumph. From 
some cause or other, this last and apparently most harmless 
act of all aroused Stanley's suspicions to a point that made 
him act promptly and decisively. 

Perhaps it was their scornful, insulting language, as they 
walked off, bidding him get his guns ready, as they were 
coming back soon to cut his throat. At all events, the 
moment he saw them approach the chief with the drum, 



ESCAPE FROM THE SAVAGES. 435 

he shouted to his men to push the boat into the water. 
The eleven men sprang to its sides, and lifting it as if it 
had been a toy, carried it, with Stanley in it, to the water's 
edge, and shot it, with one desperate effort, far out into the 
lake and beyond their depth, and where they had to swim 
for it. Quickly as it was (ione, the savages instantly de- 
tected the movement, and before the boat had lost its 
headway were crowding the very edge of the water, to 
which they had rushed like a whirlwind, shouting and 
yelling like madmen. Seizing his elephant rifle, Stanley 
sent two large conical balls into the dense mass with 
frightful effect. Then jDulling one of the men in the boat, 
and bidding him help the others in, he seized his double- 
barreled gun, loaded with buck-shot, and fired right and 
left into the close-packed, naked crowd. It was like firing 
with small shot into a flock of pigeons, and a clean swatli 
was cut through the naked mass, which was so stunned at 
the horrible effect, that they ran back up the slope without 
hurling a spear or shooting an arrow. 

"With the oars gone, the great struggle would be to gii't 
out into the oj)en lake, where they could hoist sail; for, 
this once accomplished, they could bid defiance to their 
enemies. Stanley knew the first move of the savag<*s 
would be to man their canoes, which lined the shore, and 
surround his hel23less vessel and overwhelm him. H e 
therefore watched the first movement to launch a canoe, 
and as soon as a desperate-looking savage made the attempt 
he dropped him with a bullet through his body. A second, 
following his example, fell on the beach, when the}^ paused 
at the certain death that seemed to await the man who 
dared to touch a boat. Just then Stanley caught sight of 
the sub-chief, who commanded the party that took the 
drum, and taking a cool, deliberate aim at him V'itli his 
elephant rifle he sent one of. its great conical balls tearing 



436 EFFECT OF EXPLOSIVE SHELLS. 

through his body, killing at the same time his wife and 
infant, behind him. This terrified them, for there seemed 
something supernatural about this deadly work, and they 
ceased their efforts to launch the boats, and hastened to get 
out of the reach of such fatal firing. In the meantime the 
men were slowly working the boat toward the mouth of the 
cove. But, just as they were feeling safe, Stanley saw two 
canoes, loaded heavily with warriors, push out of a little 
bay and j)ull toward him. Putting two explosive shells 
into his elephant rifle, he waited till they came within the 
distance where they would be most destructive, and then 
commenced firing. He fired rapidly, but being a dead- 
shot, with great accuracy, and the shells, as they struck 
inside the canoes, burst with terrible effect. Four shots 
killed ^\e men and sunk both the canoes, leaving the war- 
riors to swim ashore. This ended the fight, and the enraged 
and bafiled crowd vented their fury by shouting out, " Go 
and die in the Nyanza." 

Stanley's rajiid deadly firing killed fourteen, and wounded 
with buck-shot eight, which he coolly remarks, " I con- 
sider to be very dear payment for the robbery of eight ash 
oars and a drum, though barely equivalent, in our estima- 
tion, to the intended massacre of ourselves." This cool- 
blooded treachery and narrow escajoe roused Stanley's 
whole nature, and terrible as had been the j)unishmerit he 
had inflicted, he resolved that he would make it more ter- 
rible still before he had done wdtli them. 

During the perils of the next night that followed, he had 
plenty of time to nurse his wrath. Having got clear of 
the land, he hoisted sail, and favored by a light breeze, by 
night was eight miles from the treacherous Eumbireh. A 
little after dark the breeze died away, and he set the men 
to paddling. But, their oars being gone, they made slow 
headway. At sunrisq they were only twenty miles from 



A TERRIFIC NIGHT. 437 

the island, but near noon, a strong breeze springing up 
from tlie north-west, they bowled along at the rate of five 
miles an hour, and soon saw it sink in the distant horizon. 
At sunset they saw an island named Sousa, toward which 
they steered, hoping to reach it by midnight and find a 
safe haven. But about eight o'clock the breeze began to 
increase till it rose to a fierce gale, and the sail had to be 
taken in. 

Being without oars they could not keep the light boat 
before the wind, and she was whirled away by it like a 
feather, and wallowed amid the waves that kept increasing, 
till it seemed impossible to keej^ much longer afloat. The 
men strove desi^erately with their boards for paddles to 
reach the island, and get to the leeward of it, till the storm 
slvould break, but it was of no avail. They were swe23t by 
it like a piece of drift-wood, and the lightning, as it lit up 
itii green sides, seemed to mock their desjDair. The terrific 
crash of the thunder, the roar of the tempest, and the wild 
waste of the wrathful water as it was incessantly lit uj) by 
the blinding flashes, made it the most terrific night Stanley 
had ever passed in all his wide wanderings. Between the 
dashing of the waves over the gunwale and the downfall- 
ing deluge of rain, the helpless boat rapidly filled, and it 
required constant and rapid bailing to keep it from going 
to the bottom. The imagination cannot conceive the 
terrors that surrounded that little boat with its helpless 
crew on that storm-swept lake during that long, wild 
night. Above them, rushed the angry clouds, pierced in- 
cessantly by the lightning ; the heavy thunder shook the 
very heavens, while all around them were islands and 
rocks, and a few miles ahead, the main-land 23eopled by 
hostile savages. Yet, amid all their terror,, the men worn 
out with their long fasting and exhausting labors, would 

drop asleep, till awakened by the stern order to bail. The 
23 



138 A DOUBLE DELIVERANCE. 

men of Bumbirch had shouted after them, "go and die in 
the Nyanza," and they now seemed to be prophetic words. 
Stanley remembered them, and he lived to make the mur- 
derous savages remember them, too. At daybreak the 
tempest broke, and the waves not having the heavy roll of 
the ocean, quickly subsided, and they saw they had drifted 
eight miles off the isle of Susa, which they had made such 
desperate efforts to reach the night before, while other 
islands rose in the distance. There was not a morsel of 
food in the boat, and it was now forty-eight hours since 
they had tasted any, yet the men took to their paddles 
cheerfully. Soon a gentle breeze set in from the west- 
ward, and hoisting sail, they steered for an unknown island, 
which Stanley named Kefuge Island. It was small and 
uninhabited, but on exploring it, they discovered that the 
natives had once occupied and cultivated it. To their great 
joy, they found green bananas, and a small fruit resembling 
cherries, but tasting like dates. Stanley succeeded, also, in 
shooting two fat ducks. The men soon stripjDed these oi 
their feathers and had them in the pot, with which, 
and the fruit, they made what seemed to them, in their 
famished condition, a right royal repast. The camp wjis 
pitched close by the sandy beach, and when night closed 
sweetly in on the wanderers, " there were few people in the 
world," says Stanley, "blessed God more devoutly than we 
did." And well they might, for their double deliverance, 
from the savages on shore and the tempest on the 
water, was almost miraculous. 

They rested here all the next day recruiting, and then 
set sail, and coming to friendly natives, laid in a supply of 
provisions. While at anchor, some of the men plucked 
the poultry tkey had bought, and they feasted till they 
were thoroughly satisfied. 

At midnight a favorable wind rising, they set sail foT 



STEERINa FOR CAMP. 439 

Usukuma. About thn^e in tlio morning tliey Avere in tlie 
middle of the S])eke Gulf, from ^^llich they had started 
nearly two mouths before, and bound for their camp. 
The wind had died away, and the water hiy calm and 
uurufHod beneath the tropical sky. But this calm was only 
the prelude to a fearful storm.' Clouds, black as ink, 
began to roll up the heavens, their edges corrugated and 
torn by the contending forces tluit urged them on, while 
out from their foldings the liglitning leaped in blinding 
flashes, and the thunder, instead of rolling in angry peals, 
came down in great crashes as if the very frame-work of 
nature was rending, and then the hail, in stones big as 
filberts, beat down on their uncovered heads. The waves 
rose to an astonishing height, and tore like wild horses 
over the lake. The boat became unmanageable, and was 
whirled along at the mercy of the wind and waves. But 
the staunch little craft outrode the fury of the gale, with a 
buoyancy that surprised Stanley. 

Next morning, altliough almost under the equator, they 
saw the day dawn gray, and cheerless, and raw. On taking 
his observations Stanley found that he was only about 
twenty miles north-west of his camp. The news sent new 
life into the crew. They lioisted sail, and, though at first 
the wind was unfavorable, yet, as if good luck had come 
at last, it shifted astern, and, with a full sail, they steered 
straight for camj) — every heart bounding Avitli joy. 

The men in camp discovered the boat wlien miles 
away, and hurrying to the shore sent up shout after shout, 
and tossed their arms joyfully in the air. As the boat 
drove swiftly on, the shouts were clianged to volleys of 
musketry and waving of flags, while " the land seemed 
alive with leaping forms of glad-liearted men." Ivumors 
of their destruction had reached camp, and his long 
absence seemed to confirm them, and they had made up 



440 AFFECTIONATE GREETING. 

their minds, that, with their leader lost, they must turn 
back. As the boat grated on the pebbly shore, fifty 
men leaped into the water and seizing Stanley lifted him 
bodily out, and, running up the bank, placed him on their 
shoulders, and danced around the camp like madmen. They 
seemed unable to contain their joy. It showed how strong 
was the hold Stanley had on their affections. Stern in 
enforcing discipline and relentless in punishing crime, he 
was always careful of their welfare, attentive to tlieir 
wants, just in all his dealings, and generous in his reward 
for good behavior and faithful service, and, hence, had 
bound these simple children of nature to him with cords 
of iron. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE WORK ACCOMPLISHED— FEELINGS OP SATISFACTION— POCOKE's REPORT— A NARROW ESCAPK 
FOR THE EXPEDITION— DEATH OF BARKER— SWEET REPOSE— PLEASANT MEMORIES— FUTURE 
ANTICIPATIONS— WAITING FOR MAGASSA— RESOLVES TO RETUPN TO UGANDA BY LaND-IS PRE- 
VENTED—SENDS TO THE KING OP UKEREWE— HIS REQUEST GRANTED— VISITS HIM— THE INTER- 
VIEW—ROYAL HOSPITALITY— A STRATAGEM— STANLEY STARTS FOR UGANDA— A NEW CAMP^ 
RETURN TO THE OLD ONE— CONSPIRATORS FOILED— REFUGE ISLAND. 

THE next morning, as Stanley looked out of his tent- 
door upon the broad and beautiful lake that stretched 
away to the distant horizon, it was with that intense feel- 
ing of satisfaction with which one contemplates a great and 
perilous undertaking, after well-nigh abandoned, at last 
successfully accomplished. The waters, glittering in t)Le 
morning sun, had but a short time before seemed to hi)n 
an angry foe, but now they wore a friendly aspect. Th» y 
seemed to belong to him. Livingstone, and Speke, and 
Burton, and otliers had looked on that lake, and sighed in 
vain to solve the mystery that enveloped it, while lie had 
not only followed its winding shores their entire length, but 
had sounded its depths and fixed its geographical ^^osition 
forever. His toils were over, and the victory won in this 
his first great enterprise, and he could well look forward 
with hope to the great work still before him. His escapes 
had been wonderful, and he might take them as good omens 
for the future. 

It seemed as if fate delighted to place him in positions 
of danger, from which there appeared to be no escape, in 
order to show her power to save him, under any and 
all circumstances. Even now, when contemplating so 

441 



442 FEANK POCOKe's EEPOET. 

satisfactorily his success, he was startled by the narrowness 
of his escape from a danger of which he had never before 
dreamed. That trouble, disorder and desertion might be- 
fall his camp during his absence he had often feared, but 
now he was told by the men he had left in charge of it 
that in a few hours more the expedition would have broken 
up and disappeared forever. 

This was Frank Pocoke's report. He said that a rumor 
had reached camp that Stanley and his crew had been 
taken prisoners soon after leaving, and he at once sent off 
fifty soldiers to effect his release, who found the re^^ort 
false. They had also heard of his fight with the Wamma, 
and that he was killed. In the meantime a conspiracy 
had been formed by three neighboring tribes to capture 
the camp and seize all the goods. It was discovered, and 
everything put in the best state possible to defeat it, when 
the whole fell through on account of the sudden death of 
one of the conspirators and the disaffection of another. 

With the report uncontradicted of Stanley's death, nay, 
corroborated by his long absence, and in view of the dan- 
gers surrounding them, the soldiers and men held a meet- 
ing to determine what course they should take. He had 
then been gone nearly a month and a half, and it should 
not have taken more than half that time to have circum- 
navigated the lake with a boat, that in a fair breeze could 
go five or six miles an hour. 

Something must have happened to him, that was certain, 
and it mattered little whether it was death or captivity. It 
was finally decided to wait fifteen days longer, or till the 
new moon, when, if he did not appear, they would strike 
camp and march back to Unyanyembe. The fifteen days 
would have expired the next day after Stanley's arrival. 
If, therefore, he had been delayed forty-eight hours longer, 
instead of being received with the weaving of flags, shouts 



DEATH OF BARKER. 443 

and volleys of musketry, and wild demonstrations of 
deliglit, there would have been no welcome, but a silent, 
deserted camp. This would have been, a terrible blow, and 
dashed all the joy he felt at his task, successfully accom- 
plished, with the bitterest disappointment. But he had 
been saved all this ; still one calamity had befallen him 
for which there was no remedy — young Barker had died 
only a few days before his arrival, and six of his strong 
men had fallen victims to dysentery and fever. Thus 
while in all the danger through which he had passed on 
the lake, he had not lost a man, seven had died while lying 
idly in a healthy camp. The death of Barker he felt 
keenly, for of the three white men who had started with 
him, two had already fallen, and now only one was left. 

In writing to his mother, announcing his death, and ex- 
pressing his sympathy with her in her affliction, he thus 
speaks of the manner in which it occurred: "I was 
absent on an exploring expedition on Lake Victoria, having 
left Francis Pocoke and Frederick Barker in charge of my 
camp. Altogether I was absent fifty-eight days. When 
I returned, hoping that I would find that all had gone 
well, I was struck with the grievous news that your son 
had died twelve days before, of an intermittent fever. 
What little I have been able to learn of your son's death 
amounts to this : On April 22d, he went out on the lake with 
Pocoke to shoot hippopotami, and all day enjoyed himself. 
On the morning of the 23d he went out for a little v>^alk, 
had his tea and some pancakes, washed himself and then sud- 
denly said he felt ill, and lay down in bed. He called for 
a hot stone to be put to his feet ; brandy was given him, 
blankets were heaped on him, but he felt such cold in his 
extremities that nothing availed to restore heat in his body. 
His blood seems to have become congealed. At eight 
o'clock, an hour after he lay down, he was dead. Such is 



444 Rest and eepose. 

what I have beea able to glean from Pocoke of the manner 
of his death. But by our next letter-carrier, Pocoke shall 
send you a complete account." He then goes on to speak 
of his excellent qualities and promising future, and his own 
great loss. 

One of the curious things that struck Stanley as he 
looked on his party, was the strange contrast between Po- 
coke's face and his own. The former being most of the 
time in camp, had bleached to his old English whiteness, 
w^hile under the reflection of the fierce rays of an equato- 
rial suD, he had been burned till his face was the color of 
a lobster — in fact, the natives had come to call him, not the 
pale, but the rec?- faced man, to which his blood-shot eyes 
gave a still more sanguinary appearance. 

Now followed a season of rest and of sweet rej)Ose ; and 
how deep and sweet it was, may be gathered from his own 
language. He says : " Sweet is the Sabbath day to the 
toil-worn laborer, happy is the long sea-tcssed mariner on 
his arrival in port, and sweet were the days of calm rest 
^\e enjoyed after our troublous exploration of the Nyanza. 
The brusque storms, the continued rains, the cheerless 
gray clouds, the wild waves, the loneliness of the islands, 
the in hospitality of the natives that were like mere jDhases 
of a dream, were noAV but the reminiscences of the memory, 
so little did we heed what was past while enjoying tlie 
luxury of a rest from our toils. Still it added to our 
pleasure to be able to conjure up in the mind the varied 
incidents of the long lake journey ; they served to enliven 
and employ the mind while the body enjoyed re230se, like 
condiments quickening digestion. It was a pleasure to be 
able to map at will, in the mind, so many countries newly 
discovered, such a noble extent of fresh water explored for 
the first time. As the memory flew over the lengthy track 
of exploration, how fondly it dwelt on the many j)ictur- 



BRIGHT ANTICIPATIONS. 445 

esque bays, margined by water-lilies and lotns plants, or by 
tlie green walls of the slender reed-like papyrus, inclosing 
an area of water, whose face was as calm as a mirror, 
because lofty mountain ridges almost surround it. With 
what kindly recognition it roved over the little green 
island in whose snug haven our boat had lain securely at 
anchor, wdien the rude tempest without churned the face 
of the Nyanza into a foaming sheet/' The lofty rocks once 
more rose before him in imagination, wdiile the d is: ant 
hills were outlined against the fervid horizon, and the 
rich grain fields of some -of the districts smiled in the sun. 
But his memory dwelt with fondest recollection on Uganda 
and its hospitable King Mtesa, for there, it not only 
recalled the present, but pictured a glorious future, in 
vvhicli smiling villages took the places of rude huts, 
from the midst of which, church spires rose, and the clear 
tones of the bell called the dusky inhabitants to the pla'3e 
of worship. As he thus lay dreaming, close by the equa- 
torial circle, he saw the land smiling in af&uence en^d 
plenty ; its bays crowded with the dark hulls of trading- 
vessels, heard the sound of craftsmen at their work, tlie 
roar of manufactories and foundries and the ever-buzzi]ig 
noise of industry. 

With these bright anticipations of the future, the hap]>y 
result of his endeavors, would mingle his desperate encou i- 
ters with the savages, his narrow escapes, his nights of 
danger on the tempestuous lake, his wonderful success so 
near a failure at last, of all these marvelous experiences 
and events crowded on him as he lay and rested, and 
dreamed on the shores of the lake, that he felt to be his 
own. If half that he anticipated, as he lay and rested 
and dreamed, turns out true, his name will be linked with 
changes that will sink all his great discoveries into noth- 
ingness — moral changes and achievements as much above 



446 REFUSED A PASSAGE. 

mere material success as mind is above matter — civilization 
above barbarism — Christianity above Paganism. 

This successful voyage and safe return inspired the 
members of the expedition with renewed confidence in 
their leader, and Stanley soon set about prosecuting the 
great work to which he had devoted himself, and which, 
with all its toils and dangers and great sacrifice of life, 
had only just begun. 

The Grand Admiral Magassa had not yet joined him. 
There was no reason he had not done so, except that the 
fight at Bumbireh and subsequent storm on the lake had 
sent them wide apart. But he had two of Stanley's best 
men with him, who would direct him to the camp in Speke 
Bay, toward which he knew Stanley was working,- and 
where he should have been before this time. TIiq latter 
waited nine days in camp for him, and then concluding 
that he did not intend to come at all, resolved to march 
back overland with. his party (as he had no canoes to carry 
them by water) to Uganda. Just as they were ready to 
start, there came into camp a negro embassy from Ruoma, 
which lay between him and Uganda on the land route, 
with the following message : " E-uoma sends salaams to the 
white man. He does not want the white man's cloth, beads 
or wire, but the white man must not pass through his 
country. Ruoma does not want to see him or any other 
man with long red hair down to his shoulders, white face 
and big red eyes. Buoma is not afraid of him, but if the 
white man will come near his country, Buoma and Mi- 
rambo will fight him." 

"Here, indeed," as Stanley says, "was a dilemma." 
Mtesa's admiral had proved false to the instructions given 
him by the king, and no boats had arrived to convey his 
party to Uganda by water, and now the ruler of the dis- 
trict through which he must pass to reach it by land for- 



CANOES OBTAINED. 447 

bade liim to cross it. To force a passage was impossible ; 
for Euoraa, besides having a hundred and fifty muskets 
and several thousand spearmen and bowmen, had the 
dreaded Mirambo, with his fierce warriors, within a day's 
march of him and ready to aid him. Even if he could 
fight his way across the country, it would be at a sacrifice 
of life that he could not afford, and which the results he 
hoped to secure would not justify. Still, he could not give 
up Uganda, with its half-civilized king, for it was not only 
the most interesting country that bordered on the lakft, but 
it comprised the unknown region lying between it and 
Tanganika. If he could only get canoes from some other 
quarter, he could take his party to Uganda by water ; and 
once there, his friend Mtesa would give him all the aid he 
wanted. He therefore set on foot inquiries respecting the 
various tribes bordering on the gulf on which he was 
encamped, to ascertain the number of canoes each pos- 
sessed. He found that the king of Ukerewe, the large 
island lying at the mouth of the gulf, was the most likely 
person to have the canoes he wanted, and he applied to 
him. But he was unable to negotiate for them in person, 
as he was taken suddenly and seriously ill — the result of 
his long exposure on the lake under an equatorial sun — so 
sent Pocoke, with Prince Kaduma, to make proposals for 
tbem. These, taking a handsome present for the king, 
departed. In twelve days they returned with fifty canoes 
and some three hundred natives under the command of the 
king's brother ; but to convey him and his party to the 
king, not to Uganda. 

Stanley's joy at the sight of the canoes was dampened 
by this request, and he told the king's brother that if the 
formei^ would give him all his land and cattle, he would 
not let the expedition go to Ukerew^e, but that he would go 
himself, and he himself might return as soon as he pleased. 



448 AUDIENCE WITH THE- KING. 

As soon as lie was well enough lie set out, and on the 
second day reached the island. Knowing how much was 
at stake, he put on his court costume, which meant the 
best clothes in his wardrobe, aud equipped himself with his 
best arms, while his attendants bore valuable presents. 

The next day after his arrival was fixed for the great audi- 
ence. When the hour arrived Stanley mustered the crew of 
the Lady Alice, who had been dressed for the occasion, and 
the bugle sounded the order to march. In ten minutes they 
came to a level stretch of ground, in the centre of which was 
a knoll, where the king was seated in state, surrounded by 
hundreds of bowmen and spearmen. He was a young 
man, with a color tending more to the mulatto than negro 
— possessing an amiable countenance, and, altogether, lie 
made a favorable impression on Stanley. He was quite a 
conspicuous object sitting on that knoll in the midst of 
warriors, for he was wrapjoed in a robe of red and yellow 
silk damask cloth. His reception of Stanley consisted \n 
a long, steady stare, but, being informed that the latter 
wished to state the object of his visit to him and a few of 
his chiefs alone, he stepped aside a short distance to a pile 
of stones, and invited them to join him. Stanley thc^n 
stated what he wanted, how far he wished the canoes to 
go, wdiat he would pay for them, etc., etc. The king 
listened attentively, and replied in a kind and affable 
manner ; but he said his canoes were many of them rott(ni 
and unfit for a long voyage, and he Tvas afraid they w^ould 
give out, and then he would be blamed and accused of be- 
ing the cause of the loss of his proj^erty. Stanley replied 
that he might blame the canoes, but not him. At the 
close of the conference the king said he should have as 
many canoes as he wanted, but he must remain a few days 
and partake of his hospitality. This was given in no 
stinted measure, for beeves, and goats, and chickens, and 



A NATIVE STRATAGEM. 419 

milk, and eggs, and bananas, and plantains were furnished 
in prodigal quantities, together with native beer for the 
crew. They luxuriated in abundance, and on tlie fifteenth 
day the king came to Stanley's tent with his chief coun- 
selor, and gave him his secret instructions and advice. 
He said he had ordered fifty canoes to carry him as far as 
Usnkuma, Stanley's camp, but his peo]3le would not be 
willing to go to Uganda. He, therefore, had resorted to 
stratagem, and caused it to be reported that Stanly was 
going to come and live among them. He said that the 
latter must encourage this report, and when he got to 
Usukuma, and the canoes were drawn up on shore, he must 
seize them and secure the paddles. Having thus- rendered 
it impossible for them to return, he was to inform them 
what he intended to do. 

Stanley having promised to obey his instructions im- 
plicitly, the king sent with him his prime minister and two 
favorites, and he departed, after leaving behind him a hand- 
scmie present as an earnest of what he would do in the future. 
The natives bent to their paddles cheerfully, and at length 
reached Stanley's camp ; but, instead of fifty he found there 
were but twenty-three canoes. Though disappointed, he 
was compelled to be content with, these. 

He accordingly whispered his orders to the captains of 
his expedition to muster their men and seize the canoes 
and paddles. This was done and the canoes were drawn 
up far on land. The astonished natives inquired the mean- 
ing of this, and when told, flew into a furious passion, 
and being about equal in number to Stanley's party, 
showed fight. The latter saw at a glance that any attempt 
to mollify them by talk would be fruitless, and that energetic, 
prompt measures alone would answer, and he immediately 
ordered the bugle to sound the rally. The soldiers stepped 
quickly into line, when he ordered a charge with the 



450 A PLAN TO SEIZE HIM. 

muzzles of their guns, and the astonished, duped creatures 
were driven out of camp and away from the shore, 
Stanley then held a parley with them and jDroposed to 
send them back, and did, or at least a portion of them, in 
four canoes, who could return and take off the rest, but 
the canoes he kept, and on the third day started for 
Uganda with a portion of the expedition, and at the end of 
five days arrived at E-efuge Island. Kemembering when 
he wafs there before, that the inhabitants of the main-land, 
which was not more than six miles off, were not kindly 
disjDOsed toward him, he built a strong camp among the 
rocks, locating it so that each high rock could furnish a 
position fbr sharp-shooters, and in every way he could ren- 
dered it impregnable, in case it should be attacked during his 
absence. As he had not been able to embark all his ex- 
pedition and baggage, he now returned for them, reaching 
his old camp again after an absence of fifteen days. He 
learned on his arrival that two neighboring chiefs were 
planning to seize him and make him pay a heavy ransom. 
He, however, said nothing ; spoke pleasantly every day to 
one of them — Prince Kaduma, and made presents to his 
pretty wife, and went on loading his canoes. When the 
day of embarkation arrived, the two chiefs, with a strong 
force came to the water's edge and looked on moodily. Stanley 
appeared not to notice it, but laughed and talked pleasantly, 
and proceeding leisurely to the Lady Alice, ordered the 
boat's crew to shove her off. When a short distance was 
reached, he halted, and swinging broadside on shore, 
showed a row of deadly guns in point-blank range of the 
shore. Taken completely aback by this sudden movement, 
and not daring to make a hostile demonstration with those 
guns covering them, the treacherous chiefs let the process 
of embarkation go on without molestation, and soon the 
last canoe was afloat and fi final good-bye given to the 



SAFE AT REFUGE ISLAND. 451 

camp, a scornful farewell waved to tlie disappointed natives 
on shore, and the little fleet steered for Refuge Island. 
Rough weather followed, and the rotten canoes gave out 
one after another, so that he had only fifteen when he 
reached the island. He found the camp had not been 
disturbed in his absence. On the contrary, the neighbor- 
ing kings and chiefs, seeing that his camp was impregnable, 
had proffered their friendship and supplied the soldiers 
with provisions. They also provided him with a guids 
and sold him three canoes. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



A. REST— RESOLVES TO PrNISH THE BUMBIREH— SETS SAIL— MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE OF BUMBIREH 
— IMPKISOXS THE KING OP IKOBA— THE KING OF BUMBIREH IN CHAINS— ARRIVAL OF MTF^a'3 
CANOES— HOSTILITY OF THE NATIVES— MOVES ON BI'MBIBEH— THE SAVAGES EXPECTING HIM — 
PLAN OF BATTLE— THE BATTLE— KILLED AND WOUNDED— REJOICING OVER THE VICTORY— THE 
NATIVES COMPLETELY SUBDUED— STANLEY GIVES TIIEM A LECTURE— EFFECT OF THE VICTORY 
ON THE NEIGHBORING TRIBES— HIS LOSSES— PREPARES TO START FOR THE ALBERT NY ANZA— 
SIZE OF THE VICTORIA NZANZA— MUTA NZIENGE— IS IT AND THE ALBERT ONE LAKE— STANLEY'S 
JOURNAL AND MAP DO NOT AGREE— MTESA AT AVAR— STANLEY AIDS HIM— UGANDA— ABBA REGA 
ONCE MORE— baker's AND STANLEY'S JOURNAL AGREE— STANLEY ASKS FOR FIFTY THOUSAND 
MEN— MTESA GIVES HIM' TWO THOUSAND. 



(^TANLEY now rested a few days on this island before 
^■^ beginning his explorations. It was associated in his 
liiind with bitter memories, and as he wandered over it, he 
remembered the insults he had received, and his almost 
miraculous escape from death near it. The treacherous 
Bumbireh was almost in sight, and it awakened in him a 
strong desire for revenge, and he determined to visit the 
island again, and demand reparation for the wrongs he had 
received, and if it was not given, to make war on them, 
and teach them a lesson on good behavior. So at the end 
of three days he set sail and camped on Mahyiga Island, 
five miles distant, and sent a message to the natives saying, 
that if they would deliver tlieir king and tw^o principal 
chiefs into his hands, he. would make peace with them, 
otherwise he would make war. This was a cool request, 
and Stanley himself, suspecting it would be refused, sent a 
party to invite the king of Iroba, an island only a mile 
from Bumbireh, to visit him, who, dreading the vengeance 
of the white man, came, bringing with him three chiefs. 
On what principle of morals Stanley will justify his course 

452 



THE KOYAL CAPTIVE IN CHAINS. 453 

ne cannot say, but the moment the king arrived, he had 
him and his chiefs put in chains ; the conditions of their 
release being that his people should deliver the king of 
Bumbireh, and two of his principal chiefs into his hands. 
Although the people of Bumbireh had treated his mes- 
sage with contempt, the subjects of Iroba seized their king 
and delivered him into the hands of Stanley. The peril of 
their ow^n king had stimulated them to effort, and Stanley 
at once released him, while he loaded his new royal captive 
heavily with chains. He also sent a message to king 
Antari, on the main-land, to whom Bumbireh was tribu- 
tary, requesting him to redeem his land from war. In 
reply, the latter sent his son and two chiefs to him to make 
peace, who brought a quantity of bananas, as a promise of 
what the king would do in the future. Stanley in con- 
versing with them detected them in so many falsehoods, 
and thinking he saw treachery in their faces, or perhaps it 
would be more in accordance with truth to say, that having 
got them in his power, he thought it better to keep them 
as hostages for the appearance of the two chiefs of Bum- 
bireh, who had not been brought with the king, and did 
so. In the meantime, seven large canoes of Mtesa came 
up, which were out on an expedition of the king's. The 
chief commanding them told him that Magassa had re- 
covered the oars captured at Bumbireh, and that on his 
return and reporting Stanley dead, had been put in chains 
by Mtesa, but subsequently released and dispatched in 
search of him. The latter persuaded this chief, with his 
canoes to remain, and assist him in his attack on Bumbireh 
if they refused, his terms of peace. 

Two days after, this chief sent some of his men to Bum- 
bireh for food, but they ,were not allowed to land. On the 
contrary, they were attacked, and one man killed and eight 

wounded. This gave Stanley another strong reason for 
24 



454 DRAWING OUT THE ENEMY. 

making war at once without further negotiations, to which 
Mtesa's chief gladly consented. Accordingly, next morn- 
ing, he mustered two hundred and eighty men with fifty 
muskets, and two hundred spearmen, and placed them in 
eighteen canoes and set out for Bumbireh, eight miles dis- 
tant, and reached the island at two o'clock in the afternoon. 
The natives of Bumbireh were evidently expecting 
trouble, for they felt sure the attack on the friends of 
Stanley the day before would be quickly avenged. As 
the latter, therefore, drew near the shore, he saw lookouts 
on every eminence. Looking through his field-glass, he 
soon discovered messengers running to a plantain grove 
which stood on a low hill that commanded a clear, oj)en 
view of a little port on the southern point of the island, 
from which he concluded that the main force of the enemy 
was assembled there. He then called the canoes together, 
and told them to follow him and steer just as he steered, 
and by no means to attempt to land, as he did not mean 
that one of Mtesa's men should be killed, or, indeed, any 
of his own soldiers — he intended to punish Bumbireh 
without any damage to himself. He then ordered the 
crew to row straight for the port — the canoes following in 
close order behind. He managed to keep out of sight 
of the lookouts; and skirting close to the land, at the end 
of a litfele more than a mile, rounded a cape and shot into 
a fine bay, and right in rear and in full view of the enemy. 
They were gathered in such large numbers that Stanley 
saw it would not do to attack them in such a cover, and so 
steered for the opposite side of the bay, as though he 
intended to land there, where the sloping hill-sides were 
bare of everything but low grass. The savages, perceiving 
this, broke cover and ran yelling toward the threatened 
point. This was exactly what Stanley wanted, and he 
prdered the rowers to pull slowly^ so as to give them time 



DEADLY WOEK. 455 

to reach the spot toward which he was moving. Very 
soon they were all assembled on the naked hill-side, bran- 
dishing their weapons fiercely in the air. Stanley kept 
slowly on till within a hundred yards of the beach, when 
he anchored broadside on the shore — the English and 
American flags waving above him. The other seventeen 
€anoes followed his example. Seeing a group of about 
fifty standing close together, he ordered a volley to be fired 
into it. Fifty muskets and his own trusty rifle spoke at 
once, and with such terrible eflect that nearly the whole 
number was killed or wounded. The natives, astounded 
at this murderous work, now separated and came down to 
the water's edge singly, and began to yell and sling stones 
and shoot arrows. Stanley then ordered the anchors up, 
and gave directions to move the canoes to within fifty yards 
of the shore, and each soldier to select his man and fire as 
though he were shooting birds. The savages dropped 
right and left before this target practice, but the survivors 
stood their ground firmly, for they knew if Stanley efiected 
a landing he would burn everything on the island. For 
an hour they endured the deadly fire, and then, unable 
longer to stand it, moved up the hill, but still not out of 
range, especially of Stanley's unerring rifle. Though 
every now and then a man would drop, they refused to 
move farther away, for they knew that if they were not 
near enough to make a dash the moment the boats touched 
the shore, all would be lost. Another hour was therefore 
passed in this long-range firing, when Stanley ordered the 
canoes to advance all together, as if about to make a sudden 
landing. The savages, seeing this, rushed down the hill- 
side like a torrent, and massed themselves by the hundreds 
at the point toward which the canoes were moving, some 
even entering the water with their spears poised ready to 
strike. When they were packed densely together, Stanley 



456 A GREAT TICTORY. 

ordered the bugle to sound a halt, and, as the crews rested 
on their oars, directed a volley to be fired into them, which 
mowed them down so terribly that they turned and fled 
like deer over the hill. Stanley's men had now got their 
blood up, and urged him to let them land and make a 
complete end of this treacherous people, but he refused, 
saying that he came to punish, not destroy. 

They had fired in all about seven hundred cartridges, 
and as the savages were completely exposed, and in the 
afternoon, with the sun directly behind the boats, and 
shining full in their faces, the mortality was great. Over 
forty were left dead on the field, while the number of 
the wounded could not be counted, though more than a 
hundred were seen to limp or to be led away. It was a 
great victory, and Stanley's dusky allies were in a state of 
high excitement, and made the air ring with their shouts 
and laughter, as they bent to their paddles. It was dark 
when they got back to the island, where they were received 
with wild songs of triumph. Stanley w^as a great hero to 
these untutored children of nature. The next morning more 
canoes arrived from Uganda, and Stanley prepared to de- 
part. He had now thirty-two canoes, all well loaded with 
men, which made quite an imposing little fleet as they 
moved into order on the lake, and constituted a strong 
force. They sailed close to Bumbireh, and Stanley looked 
to see what had been the effect of the severe thrashing he 
had given them the day before. He found their audacity 
gone, and their proud, insulting spirit completely quelled. 
There were no shouts of defiance, no hostile demonstra- 
tions. Seeing a hundred or more gathered in a group, he 
fired a bullet over their heads, which scattered them in every 
direction. The day before they had breasted bravely 
volley after volley, but now the war spirit was thoroughly 
cowed. In another place some natives came down to the 



LIBERALLY TREATED. 457 

shore and begged them to go away and not hurt them any 
more. This gave Stanley an opportunity to preach them 
a sermon on treachery, and exhort them hereafter to treat 
strangers, who came to them peaceably, with kindness. 
The dead, in almost every hut, was, however, the most 
effectual sermon of the two. 

They camped that evening on the main-land, in the 
territory of King Kattawa, who treated them in a mag- 
nificent style for a savage, to show his gratitude for the 
punishment they had inflicted on Bumbireh, who had a 
short time before killed one of his chiefs. They stayed 
here a day, and then steered for the island of Muzina, 
where he had last seen Magassa and his fleet. The people 
w^ere not friendly to him, but they had heard of the terrible 
punishment he had inflicted on the Bumbireh, and hastened 
to supply him with provisions. They brought him five 
cattle, four goats and a hundred bunches of bananas, 
besides honey, milk and eggs. The King of Ugoro, near 
by, also sent him word that he had given his people orders 
to supply him with whatever food he wanted. Stanley 
replied that he wanted no food, but if he would lend him 
ten canoes to carry his people to Uganda, he would con- 
sider him as his friend. They were promptly furnished. 
Mtesa's chief urged him to attack the king, as he had 
murdered many of Mtesa's people, but Stanley refused^ 
saying 'he did not come to make war on black people, he 
only wished to defend his rights and avenge acts of treach- 
ery. Five days after he landed at Daomo Uganda, half 
way between the Kagera and Katonga Rivers, and pitched 
his camp. He selected this spot as the best place from which 
to start for the Albert Nyanza, which he designed next to 
explore. He wanted to see Mtesa, and get his advice as 
to which was the best route to take, because between these 
two lakes were several powerful tribes, who were continually 
at war with the king of Uganda. 



458 FORMING NEW PLANS. 

In summing up his losses during this journey of two 
hundred and twenty miles by water, he found he had lost 
six men drowned, five guns and one case of ammunition, 
besides ten canoes 'wrecked and three, riding asses dead, 
leaving him but one. He had been gone fifty-six days, 
and though the distance was but two hundred and twenty 
miles, a large portion of it had been traversed three times, 
so that he had really traveled by water over seven hundred 
and twenty miles. He had brought scarcely any provisions 
— the expedition subsisting on the corn he bought at the 
start with one bale of cloth — except such as were given 
them. He now resolved, after he had settled his camp, to 
visit Mtesa again, and consult with him about the aid he 
could give him to reach the Albert Nyanza. This lake 
was the source of the White Nile, up which Baker was 
forcing his way, the very year Stanley started on his ex- 
pedition. He hoped to launch steamers upon it, but he failed 
even to reach it, though he saw its waters, twenty miles 
distant. Between it and the Victoria Nyanza is an un- 
knowQ region. The distance from one to the other in a 
straight line is probably not two hundred miles, though by 
any traveled route it is, of course, much farther. Nothing 
is definitely known of its size or shape. Colonel Mason 
made a partial exiDloration of it last year, but it still 
remains a new field for some future explorer, for Stanley 
failed to reach it if the map of the former is correct. 
The Victoria Nyanza he computed to contain twenty-one 
thousand five hundred square miles, and to be nine thousand 
one hundred and sixty-eight feet above the sea level. 
There is a large lake almost directly west of the Nyanza 
called Muta Nzienge, which Stanley conjectures may be con- 
nected with the Albert Nyanza. The region around the 
latter is wholly unknown, except that fierce cannibals 
occupy its western shore. We say that Stanley did not 



MTESA AT WAR. 459 

reacli the Albert Nyanza at all, though if it and the Muta 
Nzieno^e are one he did. He inserts in his iournal that he 
reached the shore of the lake, yet by his map he did not. 
This discrepancy, owing probably to the fact that he 
thought, at the time, tlie lake he saw w^as the Albert Nyanza, 
and though Colonel Mason explored it partially last year, 
and makes it an entirely distinct lake, he may think so 
still. At all events, his map and journal should agree, 
but they do not, w4iich confuses things badly. His route, 
as he has marked it down, does not go near it. On the 
other hand, if the Albert and the JMuta Nzienge are one, 
it rivals in length that of the great Tanganika, but we 
believe no one thinks it to be. 

Stanley found Mtesa at war with the Wavuma, who 
refused to pay their annual tribute. According to his 
account this monarch had an army with him w^hich, with 
its camp followers, amounted to a quarter of a million of 
souls. He remained with him several weeks as the war 
dragged slow^ly along, and, in the meantime, translated, 
Avith the hel23 of a young, educated Arab, a part of the 
Bible for him, and apparently sent him forward a great way 
toward Christianity. He at length, after he had witnessed 
various naval battles that did not seem to bring the war 
any nearer to a termination, built for the king a huge 
naval structure, wholly inclosed, w^hich, when it moved 
against the brave islanders, filled them with consternation^ 
and they ma,de peace. 

At. this point, Stanley makes a break in his journal and 
devotes nearly a hundred pages to Uganda and its king, 
Mtesa. He gives its traditions, mingled, doubtless, with 
much fable ; a .description of its lan-d fruits, customs of the 
peojDle — in short, a thorough history, as far as the natives 
know anything about it This possesses more or less inte- 
rest, though the information it conveys is of very little 



460 A MODERATE REQUEST. 

eonsequencG, while it is destitute of any incident connected 
with his journey. 

It was now October, and he turned his attention directly 
to the next scene of his labors — the exploration of the 
Albert Nyanza. The great difficulty here was to get 
through the warlike tribes that lay between the lakes and 
around the latter, of which Abba Rega was one of the 
most hostile chiefs. This king, it will be remembered, 
was the great foe of Baker, whom the latter drove out of 
the country, after burning his capital, and put Rionga in 
his place. He said then thgit this treacherous king had 
gone to the shores of the Albert Nyanza. By the way, 
Baker's statement and Stanley's journal, placed together, 
seem to make it certain that the Muta Nzienge, which the 
latter reached, and the Albert Nyanza are the same ; for, 
in the first place, it will be remembered. Baker's last jour- 
ney was to Unyoro, where he saw the Albert Nyanza. 
Now Stanley, it will be seen hereafter, traverses this same 
district to reach the lake he called Muta Nzienge. Again, 
Baker says that Abba Bega fled to the Albert Nyanza, and 
yet Stanley found him on Lake Muta Nzienge. If Stan- 
ley's attention had been called to this, we hardly think he 
would have made two lakes on his map, when, from these 
corroborating statements, there could have been but one. 
The fact that these separate statements, made two years 
apart, are purely incidental, makes the fact they go to 
prove the more certain to be true. We have not seen 
Colonel Mason's recent voyage on the lake, but it seems 
impossible that Baker and Stanley should reach through 
the same tribe two large and entirely separate lakes. 

Aware not only of the hostility, but power of some of the 
tribes between Uganda and Lake Albert, Stanley asked 
Mtesa for fifty or sixty thousand men — a mighty army. 
With such a force he thought he could ^not only overcome 



TWO THOUSAND SOLDIERS. 461 

all opposition on the way, but hold the camp he wished to 
establish, while he spent two months in exploring the lake. 
But Mtesa told him two thousand would be ample, which , 
he would cheerfully furnish. He said that he need not 
fear Abba Kega, for he would not dare to lift a spear 
against his troops, for he had seated him on the throne 
of Kameazi. Though Stanley was not convinced of the 
truth of Mtesa's statements, he would not urge him further 
and accepted the two thousand soldiers, commanded by 
General Lamboori, as an escort, with many expressions 
of thanks. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE EXPEDITION TO ALBERT NYANZA. 

FORCE OF THE EXPEDITION— ITS START— FIRST MARCH— THROUGH HOSTILE TINYORO— THE EN^ 
CAMPMENT— MOrXT GAMBARAGARA— ITS SUMMIT OC^'PIED BY WHITE PEOPLE— LIVE OX Jk 
ROCK IX THE MIDDLE OF A LAKE— THEIR ORIGIX — OTHER STRAXGE TRIBES — THE MARCH— 
FRIGHTENED PEOPLE — THE LAKE REACHED WITHOUT OPPOSITIOX— A MISERABLE FAILURE— 
THE REASOX OF IT— STAXLEY'S FEELIXGS— THE RETURX— REPORT TO MTESA— HIS WRATH- 
LIBERAL OFFERS— WOXDERS OF THE COUXTRY — A GEXEROUS, PEACEFUL KIXG— LAKE WINDO- 
ICERE- SOURCE OF THE NILE— ABSURD THEORIES— THE HOT SPRINGS OF MTAGATA. 

STANLEY'S expedition consisted of one hundred and 
eighty men, which, with the troops Mtesa gave him,, 
made a total of two thousand two hundred and ninety men. 
To this little army were attached some five hundred women 
and children, making a sum total of two thousand eight 
hundred. With this force all ordinary opposition could he 
overcome, and as it moved off with the sound of drums- 
and horns, and the waving of the English and American 
flags, conspicuous amid those of the negro army, it pre- 
sented a very animated appearance. But Stanley was 
destined to find out what others have learned before him, 
that a small force under one's own immediate command is 
better than a large undisciplined one, that is subject to 
the orders of another. 

General Lamboozi had no heart in this expedition, and 
soon showed it. But they moved off gayly over the swell- 
ing pasture-lands of Uganda, striking north-west toward 
the lake, which Stanley hoped to explore, as he had the 
Victoria Nyanza. The march through Uganda was a 

462 



I 



i 



A STRANGE PEOPLE. 465 

pleasant one, and they at length reached the frontier of 
Unyora and prepared for war. 

Gn the 5th of January they entered Abba Rega's terri- 
tory, whom, two years before. Baker had driven from his 
throne, and who naturally felt peculiarly hostile to all 
white men. But no resistance was offered — the people, as 
if remembering the past, fleeing before them, leaving their 
provisions and everything behind them, of which the 
army made free use. Three days after they came to the 
base of a mighty mountain,' called Kabrogo, rising five 
thousand five hundred feet into the air, j)resenting, in its 
naked, rugged outline, a sublime appearance. They en- 
camped that night on a low ridge, in sight of the Katonga 
River, flowing east in its course to the Victoria Nyanza, 
bringing up many associations to Stanley's mind — while to 
the west the Buanga filled the night air with its thunder- 
ous sound, as it tumbled over cataracts toward the Albert 
Nyanza. From an eminence near by could be seen in the 
distance the colossal form of Gambaragara Mountain loom- 
ing up from the wilderness — a second Mont Blanc, rising 
some three miles into the cloudless heavens. Though 
under the equator, snow is often seen on its summit. - But 
what gives it peculiar interest is, that on its cold and lonely 
top dwell a people of an entirely distinct race, being white, 
like Europeans. The king of Uzigo once spoke to Stan- 
ley and Livingstone of this singular people, and now the 
latter saw half a dozen of them. Their hair, he says, is 
" kinky," and inclined to brown in color ; their features 
regular ; lips thin, and noses well shaped. Altogether, they 
are a handsome race — the women, many of them possessing 
great beauty. Some of their descendants are scattered 
•through the tribes living near the base of the mountain, 
but the main body occupy its lofty summit. The queen of 
one of the islands in the Victoria Nyanza is a descendent of 



466 SINGULAR TRADITIONS. 

them. The history of this singular j)eople is wrapped in 
mystery. 

There is a tradition that the first king of Unyoro^ gave 
them the land at its base, and the approach of a powerful 
enemy first drove them to the top for safety. They have 
become so acclimated that they can stand the cold, while 
the dwellers of the plain are compelled to flee before it. 
Mtesa once dispatched his greatest general with an army 
of a hundred thousand men to capture them. They suc- 
ceeded in making their way to a great height, but finally 
had to retreat — the cold became so intense. 

The reti-eat of this pale-faced tribe is said to be inacces- 
sible. The top is supposed to be the crater of an extinct 
volcano ; for on it there is a lake nearly a third of a mile 
long, from the centre of which rises a huge rock to a great 
height. Around the top of this runs a rim of rock, making 
a natural wall, in which are several villages, where the 
principal "medicine-man'' and his people reside. 

This account, if true, does not touch the origin of this 
peculiar race of people, nor in any way explain the fact of 
their existence here in tropical Africa. Two men belong- 
ing tb this tribe joined Stanley's ex^Dedition in this march 
to the Albert Lake, yet he seems to have obtained no 
information from them of the history of their tribe. 
Whether they had any traditions or not we are .not in- 
formed — we only know that Stanley found them extremely 
uncommunicative. It is j)ossible they had nothing to tell, 
for a vast majority of the negro tribes of Africa have no 
j)ast; they care neither for the past or future, so far as 
external life is concerned, living only in the j^resent. 
These two men occupied a high position, for some cause, in 
the army under Lamboozi, and were the only ones who 
were allowed more than two milch cows on the route 
Various stories about these people were told Stanley, and 



I 



A LAND OF FABLES. 467 

it is difficult to come at the truth. About the only thing 
that seems established is that this white race exists, of 
whose origin nothing definite has as yet been obtained. 
Stanley says that he heard they were of Arab origin, but 
there are plenty of Arabs in Africa — in fact, all the 
soldiers attached to the expedition were Arabs, and colonies 
of them had long existed in Central Africa ; but they are 
not white men. 

It seems impossible that Livingstone, years before, should 
have heard of this singular people, and Stanley seen speci- 
mens of them, if no such tribe really existed. It seems 
almost equally strange that they should be able for cen- 
turies to keep so isolated that their very home is a myth. 
The truth is, that Africa is a land of fables and traditions, 
that partake of the wonderful and often of the miraculous. 
Mr. Stanley was told of other tribes of white people living 
in a remote unknown region, possessing great ferocious 
dogs, and also of dwarfs of singular habits and customs. 
These traditions or rejDorts, that are invariably vague in 
their character, usually have more or less foundation in 
truth. Mixed with the wonderful, that always holds an 
important place in savage literature, there will generally 
be found at least a grain of truth ; and the traditions of 
white races among a j)eople who had never seen white men, 
could hardly exist if no such tribes existed. 

The diet of this strange race consists of milk and bananas. 
Stanley says the first specimen he saw of the tribe was a 
young man, whom he at first took for a young Arab from 
Cairo, who for some reason had wandered off to U2:anda. 
and taken up his residence with King Mtesa. The two 
attached to his expedition would easily have been mistaken 
for Greeks in white shirts. Stanley, after seeing these 
white Africans, the stories concerning whose existence he 
bad regarded as one of the fables of the ignorant, super- 



468 DESERTED VILLAGES. 

stitious natives, says that he is ready to believe there is a 
medium of truth in all the strange stories that he has been 
accustomed to listen to as he would to a fairy tale. ' Four 
years jDrevious, while exploring the Tanganika with Liv- 
ingstone, they both smiled at the story told them of a 
white peoj^le living north of Uzigo, but now he had seen 
them, and if it were not that their hair resembles some- 
what that of the negro he should take them for Euro]3eans. 
He heard afterwards that the first king of Kisbakka, a 
country to the south-west, was an Arab, whose scimiter is 
still preserved by the natives, and infers tliat these people 
may be his descendants. He also heard of a tribe that 
wore armor and used a breed of fierce and powerful dogs 
in battle. 

From this point the expedition moved on toward the 
Albert Nyanza, along the southern bank of the Rusango 
River, a rapid, turbulent stream winding in and out 
among the mountains, and rushing onward in fierce, rapid 
and headlong cataracts to the peaceful bosom of the lake. 
For ten hours they marched swiftly through an uninhab- 
ited country and then emerged into a thickly populated 
district. Their sudden appearance, with drums beating 
and colors flying, filled the people, who had no intimation 
of their coming, with such consternation, that they took to 
the woods, leaving everything behind them — even the 
porridge on the fire and great pots of milk standing ready 
for the evening .meal. Fields and houses were alike 
deserted in a twinkling, and the army marched in and 
took possession. Thus far they had met with no opposition 
whatever, and the Avarlike tribe Stanley had feared so 
much and had taken such a large force with him to over- 
come, seemed to have no existence. In fact, the days had 
passed by monotonously, for the most part the scenery was 
tame, and the march of the troops from day to day was 



I 



A MISERABLE FAILURE. . 469 

without incident or interest, and now, at this village, they 
were within a few miles of the lake, to reach which was 
the sole object of all this display of force. Instead of 
fighting their way, they found themselves in undisputed 
possession of a large and populous district, with not a soul 
to give them any information. 

We confess there is something about this journey from the 
Victoria Nyanza to the Albert that we do not understand. 
By the route on the map it must have been nearly two 
hundred miles, and yet the expedition started on January 
5th, and on the evening of the 9th was within three miles 
of the latter, which would make the marching about fifty 
miles a day— an impossibility. 

Now fifty miles a day for four days would be terri- 
ble marching for veteran troops. Hence, Ave say, the 
map or journal is wrong. If he took the route he has 
marked down and completed it in the time he says he did, 
one instead of two parallels of longitude should indicate 
the distance between the two lakes. In fact, this whole 
expedition was such a miserable failure, that anywhere 
but in Africa it would be looked upon as a farce, and 
shows how utterly futile it is to rely on the native Africa] is 
in any great enterprise. The Arabs are bad enough, but 
they are fidelity itself compared to these black savages. 

Here was an expedition numbering nearly three thousajid 
souls, organized to secure a safe march to a lake not fiv^e 
days distant. It met with no obstacles of any moment, 
reached the lake, and there, on the mere rumor that 
hostilities were intended, practically broke up and returned. 
Stanley had, with about three hundred men, traversed 
an unknown country for months, fought battles, and at ihe 
end of a thousand miles reached the Jake he was after, 
pitched his camp, and with a crew of eleven men explored 
the lake its entire circuit, and returned in safety. Here, 



470 THE ARMY DEMORALIZED. 

with a small army, after a four days' march he reaches 
the Albert Nyanza, yet does nothing but turn round and 
march back again. It would seem, at first sight, strange 
that if he could march a thousand miles from the sea to 
the Victoria Nyanza and then explore it, he could not now 
with the same men explore this lake Avithout the aid of 
Lamboozi and his two thousand or more soldiers. Doubt- 
less he could but for this very army. Its disaffection and 
declaration that they were not strong enough to resist the 
force about to be brought against them, created a panic 
among Stanley's men. If two thousand fled it would be 
madness for one hundred and eighty to st§.y. The simple 
truth is, the more such men one has with him, unless he is 
the supreme head and his will is law, even to life and 
death, the worse he is off. Stanley, planning, controlling 
and directing every movement is a power ; Stanley under 
the direction of a swaggering, braggart African negro gen- 
eral is nobodv. 

Lamboozi did, next morning after their approach to the 
lake, send out two hundred scouts to capture some natives, 
by whom they could get a message to the king of the dis- 
trict, saying that they had no hostile intentions, and if per- 
mitted to encamp on the shores of the lake for two months, 
would pay in beads, cloth and wire for whatever provisions 
they consumed. Five were captured and sent to the king 
with this proposition, but he did not deign an answer. On 
the 11th, they moved the camp to within a mile of the lake, 
on a plateau that rose a thousand feet above its surface. A 
place was selected for a camp and men sent out to capture 
all the canoes they could find. In three hours they re- 
turned with only five, and those too small for their purpose. 
But they brought back word that the whole country was 
aroused, and that a large body of strange w^arriors had 
arrived on the coast to aid the king in making war o» the 
new-comers. 



THE RETURN'. 471 

General Lamboozi now became thoroughly alarmed, and 
stubbornly refused to grant Stanley's request to move to 
the edge of the lake and intrench. It seemed probable 
that the natives meant to give battle, but with what num- 
bers or j)rospect of success, Lamboozi took no measures to 
ascertain. Next day he resolved to march back. En- 
treaties and threats were alike in vain, and there was 
nothing left for Stanley to do but march back with him. 
He Avas greatly disappointed and thoroughly disgusted, 
but there was no help for it. That Unyoro and Abba 
Eega would be hostile, Stanley knew before he started, 
and on that account took so large a force with him. Yet 
he says, after this miserable failure, that it was a foolhardy 
attempt at the outset. Looking at it calmly, he pronounces 
it a great folly, redeemed from absurdity only by "the 
success of having penetrated through Unyoro and reached 
the Albert.'^ It is difficult to see wherein lies the great- 
ness of this success ; for, according to his own account, it 
was one of the most peaceful marches he ever performed, 
with hardly enough incident in it to make it interesting. 
It matters little, however ; all that can be said is, th^y 
marched up to the lake and then marched back again. 

On the morning of the 13th, they began their return ).n 
order of battle — five hundred spearmen in front, five hun- 
dred as a rear guard, and the expedition in the centre-— 
but no enemy attacked them or attempted to do anything 
but pick up some stragglers. The next day the expedition 
formed the rear guard, and once some natives rushed out 
of the woods to attack them, but were quickly dispersed by 
a few shots. 

This is all that happened to this army in terrible Un- 
yoro, and presents a striking contrast to Baker's gallant 
march throu^'h it with his little band, fighting every day 

for nearly a week. Four days after, without any further 
25 



472 A GENEROUS OFFER. 

molestation, they re-entered Uganda, where Samboozl 
turned off to his home. Stanley had heard no news 
of Gordon or of the steamers he was to place on the lake 
according to the plan of Baker ; and though at first he 
thought that he would seek some other way to reach it and 
make his explorations, he finally resolved to start for Tan- 
ganika, which he would reach in about four months, and ex- 
plore it. Hence, while Samboozi turned eastward toward 
Lake Victoria, he, wdth his little band, turned southward. 
He sent a letter, however, to Mtesa, informing him 
of Samboozi's cowardice and refusal to build a camp at. 
Lake Albert, and telling him also that this redoubtable 
general had robbed him. He had intrusted to his care 
three porter's loads of goods to relieve his own carriers,, 
and these he had appropriated as his own. 

When the letter reached the emperor he was thrown 
into a towering passion, and immediately dispatched a 
body of troops to seize the general, with orders to strip him 
of his wives, slaves, cattle and everything he possessed,, 
and bring him bound to his presence. He also sent letter 
after letter to Stanley, begging him to return, and he 
would give him ninety thousand men, with brave generals 
to command them, who would take him to Lake Albert, 
and protect him there till he had finished his explorations. 
Stanley was very much moved by this generous offer and 
the anxiety of the king to make amends for Samboozi's 
poltroonery and thieving conduct. The noble savage felt it 
keenly that he, who valued so highly the esteem of Stan- 
ley, should be disgraced in his sight, and it was hard for 
the latter to refuse his urgent request to be allowed to 
redeem his character and his pledge. But Stanley had 
liad enough of Waganda troops, and felt that whatever 
was accomplished hereafter must be by his well-trained, 
compact, brave little band. He kept on his way, and 
never saw Mtcsa again. 



A LAND OF WONDEES. 473 

He had been able to add considerable to the geography 
of the country bordering on Lake Albert. Usongora, a 
promontory running thirty miles into the lake southward, 
he ascertained to be the great salt field, from whence all the 
surrounding countries obtain their salt. From all he could 
bear, it was truly a land of wonders, but he says the man 
who should attempt to explore it would need a thousand 
muskets, for the natives cannot be enticed into peace by 
cloth and beads. They care for nothing but milk and 
goat-skins. " Among the wonders credited to it," he says, 
" are a mountain emitting fire and stones, a salt lake of 
considerable extent, several hills of rock-salt, a large plain 
encrusted thickly with salt and alkali, a breed of very large 
dogs of extraordinary ferocity, and a race of such long- 
legged natives, that ordinary mortals regard them with 
surprise and awe." They do not allow members of their 
tribe to intermarry with strangers, and their food, like the 
dwellers in the Himalaya Mountains, in India, consists 
chiefly of milk. Mtesa once invaded their territory with 
one hundred thousand men, to capture cows, of which the 
natives have an immense number, and in watching which 
consists their sole occupation. The army returned with 
twenty thousand, but they were obtained at such a fearful 
sacrifice of life that the raid will not be repeated. 

Stanley rested a few days after Samboozi left him, be- 
fore proceeding northward. He then continued his march 
leisurely through the country, inquiring on the way the 
character of the tribes westward toward that part of Lake 
Albert which extended south from where he struck it, but 
one and all were reported hostile to the passage of any 
strangers through their territory. 

Arriving on the Kagera River in Karagwe, he found the 
King Rumanika a mild, pleasant-spoken man and very 
friendly, but he told him that all the neighboring tribes 



474 PUSHING THROUGH PAPYRUS. 

would not let him enter their lands. The latter, a littlo 
suspicious of the motives that j)rompted this bad report of 
the surrounding tribes, to test him, asked him if he had any 
objections to his exploring his country. He gaid no, and 
cheerfully j)romised to furnish him guides and an escort, 
and his party should be suj)plied with food, free of charge. 
'Stanley, surprised at this generosity, at once got ready to 
start. He first went south to Lake Windermere, a small 
body of water so named by Captain Speke, because of its 
fancied resemblance to the lake of that name in England. 
The Lady Alice was taken there, screwed together and 
launched on the peaceful waters. 'Accompanied by six native 
canoes he sailed round it and then entered Kagera E-iver, 
called by Speke the Kitangule. Suddenly it flashed on 
Stanley's mind that he had discovered the true parent of 
the Victoria Nile. It fed and drained this little lake some 
nine miles long. Moreover, he found that there was a depth 
of fifty-two feet of water and a breadth of one liundred and 
fifty feet. He therefore pushed up it some three days and 
came to another lake, nine miles long and six miles wide. 
Working up through the papyrus that covered the stream, 
he came to another lake or pond, a mile and a half long. 
Ascending an eminence he discovered that this whole por- 
tion of the river was a lake — lar2:e tracts of which were 
covered with paj^yrus or that vegetation which we have seen 
Baker had to contend with in ascending the Nile. It 
seemed solid ground, while in fact it was a large body of 
water covered over, with here and there an opening, mak- 
ing a separate lake, of which Windermere was the largest. 
This a]3parently underground lake was some eighty miles 
in length and fourteen in width. 

Following the river as it flowed eastward into the Victoria 
Nyanza, he found he entered another lake, thirteen miles 
long and some eight miles broad. This was, of course, the 



I 



ABSURD THEORIES. 475 

continuation of the lake, covered at intervals with this 
tropical vegetation, wliich gave to it the appearance of 
land. There were in all seventeen of these lakes. This 
river now broadening as the formation of the land causes 
it to expand, now narrowing till its channel is forty feet 
deep, it at last tumbles over cataracts and rushes through 
rapids into the Victoria Nyanza. All this seems of little 
account, except, as Stanley says, he has found in it the 
trae source of the Victoria Nile. 

The great and persistent efforts to find out the source of 
the Nile have led explorers to push their theories to an 
alsurd extent. Because Herodotus made the Nile to rise 
iiv some large springs, they seem to think they must find 
s( mething back and beyond a great lake as its source. Now, 
w hen a river flows right on through one lake after another, 
niaking lakes as the formation of the ground allows, it 
oi' course maintains its integrity and oneness. 

In this case there is but one main stream ; and as long 
a^' the lakes are the mere spreading out of that stream on 
low, flat lands, it must remain the same. Thus, in our own 
State, the tw^o rivers, the Racket and the Saranac, pass 
through several lakes, yet remain always the same rivers, 
with no tributaries but little brooks. But when you come 
to great reservoirs like the Albert and Victoria Nyanza 
and the Tanganika — into w^iich a hundred streams, and 
perhaps twice that number of springs, flow^ — to go beyond 
such reservoirs to find the head of the stream is bringing 
geography down to a fine 23oint. The outlet is plain — you 
have traced the river up till you see it roaring from its 
great feeder. This is very satisfactory, and should end all 
research after the source of the stream. But to insist on 
taking measurements of a dozen different rivers that flow 
into a lake a thousand miles in circumference, to find which 
is a mile longest or ten feet deepest, and thus determine 



476 HOT SPRINGS OF MTAGATA. 

the source of the outlet, is preposterous. A lake covering 
twenty -two thousand square miles, fed by a hundred rivers, 
is a reservoir of itself, and not an exjoansion of any one 
river. One might as well try to prove which is the great 
source or feeder of the Atlantic Ocean — the Amazon, 
Mississippi or Congo. 

Thus we find Stanley, when he struck the Shimeeyu in 
Speke Gulf, declaring he had found the extreme southern 
source of the Nile ; and now, when exploring another river 
on another side of the lake of larger volume, he changes 
his mind and thinks he has made a great discovery in 
ascertaining at last the true source of the river. He found 
it over fifty feet deep, which showed what a volume of water 
it poured into the Victoria Nyanza. Descending it again, 
he entered another lake some thirteen miles long by eight 
wide. Exploring this, he was driven back by the natives 
when he attempted, to land, who hailed him with shrill 
shouts and wild war-cries. The Kagera, through its entire 
length, maintains almost ^the same depth and volume. 

Returning to his generous host, he asked for guides to 
take him to the hot springs of Mtagata, the healing pro- 
]3erties of which he had heard of far and wide from the 
natives. These were cheerfully given, and after a march 
of two days he reached them. Here he was met by an 
astonishing growth of vegetation. Plants of an almost in^ 
finite variety covered the ground, growing so thick and 
cro^vding each other so closely, that they became a matted 
mass — the smaller ones stifled by the larger — and out of 
which trees shot up an arrow's-flight, into the air, with 
" globes of radiant green foliage upon their stem-like 
crowns.'' He found a crowd of diseased persons here, try- 
ing the effect of the water. Naked men and women were 
lying promiscuously around in the steaming water, half- 
asleep and half-cooked, for the water showed a temperature 



I 



WILD AND FIERCE NATIVES. 479 

of one hundred and twenty-nine degrees. The springs 
were, however, of different temperature. The hottest one 
issued from the base of a rocky hill, while four others, 
twenty degrees cooler, came bubbling up out of black mud, 
and were the favorites of the invalids. Stanley camped 
here three days, and bathed in the water and drank it, but 
could perceive no effect whatever on his system. Return- 
ing to his friend Rumaniki, he prepared to start on his 
journey south to Lake Tanganika, and finish its explora- 
tions. 

Having discovered that the Kagera River formed a lake 
eighty miles long, and was a powerful stream a long dis- 
tance from its mouth, he resolved, as it flowed from the 
south, to follow it up and try to find its source. A broad 
wilderness lay before him, the extent of which he did not 
accurately know, and he packed ten days' provisions on the 
shoulders of each man of the expedition, and bidding the 
soft-voiced pagan king, by whom he had been treated so 
kindly, a warm good-bye, he entered the forest and kept 
along the right bank of the stream. This w^as the 27th of 
March, and for six days he marched through an unin- 
habited wilderness, with nothing to break the monotony of 
the journey. At the end of that time he came to the 
borders of Karagwe and to the point where the Akanyaru 
River entered the Kagera. He dared not explore this 
river, for the natives that inhabit both banks are wild and 
fierce, having a deadly hatred of all strangers. They are 
like the long-legged race of Bumbireh, and he did not care 
to come in collision with them. They possess many cattle, 
and if one sickens or dies, they do not attribute it to acci- 
dent, but believe it has been bewitched, and search the 
country through to find the stranger who has done it, and 
if he is found, he dies. 

All the natives of the region are passionately fond of 



480 A DOMESTIC PICTURE. 

their cows, and will part with anything sooner than milk. 
Stanley says that his friend Kumaniki, with all his gene- 
rosity, never offered him a teaspoonful of milk, and if he 
iad given him a can of it he believes his people would 
have torn him limb from limb. He thinks that half of 
their hostility arises from the fear of the evil effect that 
the presence of strangers will have on their cattle. Hence 
they keep a strict quarantine on their frontiers. It is not 
strange that they should cherish them carefully, for they 
are their sole means of subsistence. 

This long journey through various tribes is singularly 
barren of incident. He lost his last dog, Bull, on the 
nmte, who had bravely held out in all their long wander- 
ings, but at last gave up and laid down and died, with his 
eyes fixed on the retiring exjDcdition. He also met the 
redoubtable Mirambo, and found him not the blood-thirsty 
monster he had been represented to be, but a polite, 
pleasant-mannered gentleman, and generous to a fault. 
They made blood brotherhood together, and became fast 
friends. At length, in the latter part of May, he reached 
TJjiji, where he formerly found Livingstone. The following 
extract from a private letter of Stanley's, written to a friend 
while at Lake Victoria, gives a domestic picture that is 
quite charming, he says that "Kagehyi is a straggling vil- 
lage of cane huts, twenty or thirty in number, which are 
built somewhat in the form of a circle, hedged around by 
a fence of thorns twisted between upright stakes. Sketch 
such a village in your imagination, and let the centre of 
it be dotted here and there with the forms of kidlings who 
prank it with the vivacity of kidlings under a hot, glowing 
sun. Let a couple of warriors and a few round-bellied 
children be seen among them, and near a tall hut which is 
a chief's, plant a taller tree, under whose shade sit a few 
elders in council with their chief; so much for the village. 



MY QUARTERS. 481 

Now outside the village, yet touching the fence, begin to 
draw the form of a square camp, about fifty yards square, 
each side flanked with low, square huts, under the eaves of 
which, plant as many figures of men as you please, for we 
have many, and you have the camjD of the exj^loring ex- 
pedition, commanded by your friend and humble servant. 
From the centre of the camp you may see Lake Victoria, 
or that portion of it I have called Speke Gulf, and 
twenty-five miles distant you may see table-topjDed Magita, 
the large island of Ukerewe, and toward the north-west a 
cl^ar horizon, with nothing between water and sky to mar 
its' level. The surface of the lake which apj)roaches to 
wxthin a few yards of the catap is much ruffled just at 
present with a .north-west breeze, and though the sun is 
g'.owing hot, under the shade it is agreeable enough, so that 
ii^>body perspires or is troubled with the heat. You must 
understand there is a vast difference between New York and 
C-entral African heat. Yours is a ^weltering heat, begetting 
languor and thirst — ours is a dry heat, permitting activity 
and action without thirst or perspiration. If we exposed 
ourselves to the sun, we should feel quite as though we 
were being baked. Come with me to my lodgings, now. 
I lodge in a hut little inferior in size to the chief's. In it 
is stored the luggage of the expedition, which fills one-half. 
It is about six tons in weight, and consists of cloth, beads, 
wire, shells, ammunition, powder^ barrels, portmanteaus, 
iron trunks, photographic apparatus, scientific instruments, 
pontoons, sections of boat, etc., etc. The other half of the 
hut is my sleeping, dining and hall-rpom. It is dark 
as pitch within, for light cannot penetrate the mud 
with which the wood-work is liberally daubed. * The floor 
is of dried mud, thickly covered with dust, which breeds 
fleas and other vermin to be a plague to me and my poor 
dogs. 



482 CURRENCY OF AFRICA. 

" I have four youthful Mercuries, of ebon color, attend* 
ing me, who, on the march, carry my personal weapons of 
defense. I do not need so many persons to wait on me, 
but such is their pleasure. They find their reward in the 
liberal leavings of the table. If I have a goat killed for 
European men, half of it suffices for two days for us. 
When it becomes slightly tainted, my Mercuries will beg 
for it, and devour it at a single sitting. Just outside of the 
door of my hut are about two dozen of my men sitting, 
squatted in a circle and stringing beads. A necklace of 
beads is each man's daily sum wherewith to buy food. I 
have now a little over one hundred and sixty men. 
Imagine one hundred and sixty necklaces given each day 
for the last three months — in the aggregate the sum 
amounts to fourteen thousand necklaces — in a year to 
fifty-eight thousand four hundred. A necklace of ordinary 
beads is cheap enough in the States, but the expense of 
carriage makes a necklace here equal to about twenty-five 
cents in value. For a necklace I can buy a chicken, or a 
peck of sweet potatoes, or half a jDCck of grain. 

" I left the coast with about forty thousand yards of 
cloth, which, in the States, would be worth about twelve and 
a half cents a yard, or altogether about five thousand dol- 
lars — the expense of portage, as far as this lake, makes each 
yard worth about fifty cents. Two yards of cloth will pur- 
chase a goat or sheep ; thirty will purchase an ox ; fifteen 
yards are enough to purchase rations for the entire caravan." 

Why these naked savages put such a high value on 
cloth, none of these African explorers inform us. We can 
understand why they should like beads, brass wire, shells 
and trinkets of all sorts. They certainly use very little 
cloth on their persons. 

He adds : " These are a few of the particulars of our 
domestic affairs. The expedition is divided into eight 



COMPELLED TO KILL. 483 

squads, of twenty men each, with an experienced man over 
each squad. They are all armed with Snider's percussion- 
lock muskets. A dozen or so of the most faithful have a 
brace of revolvers in addition to their other arms." 

He then goes on to speak of the battles he has fought, 
and it is but just to him to give his feelings as he describes 
them in confidential private correspondence, on being com- 
pelled to kill the savages. He says : "As God is my judge, 
I would prefer paying tribute, and making these savages 
friends rather than enemies. But some of these people are 
cursed with such delirious ferocity that we are compelled 
to defend ourselves. They attack in such numbers and so 
sudden, that our repeating rifles and Sniders have to be 
handled with such nervous rapidity as will force them back 
before we are forced to death ; for if we allow them to come 
within forty yards, their spears are as fatal as bullets ; their 
spears make fearful wounds, while their contemptible- 
looking arrows are as deadly w^eapons. * * * Since I 
left Zanzibar, I have traveled seven hundred and twenty 
miles by land and a thousand miles by water. This is a 
good six months' work." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



BACK Td UJIJI— PLEASANT ASSOCIATIONS— THE MYSTEKY OF TANGANIKA— NO OUTI^tT— CAME- 
BON'S expedition— thinks he discovers the outlet— doubts of STANLEY— the LAKH 
CONSTANTLY RISING— STANLEY STARTS TO EXAMINE FOR HIJISEU- BAGS TWO ZEBRAS— A 
WHOLE TILLAGE MASSACRED— REACHES CAMERON'S OUTLET— EXPLORES IT THOROUGHLY— 
DECLARES CAMERON TO BE MISTAKEN— THE FUTURE OUTLET— LIVINGSTONE'S INFLUENCE— THE 
SMALL-POX IN CAMP— DESERTION OF iriS MEN— PROMPT MEASURES— CROSSES THE TANGANIKA — 
MORE DESERTIONS— PEOPLE OF MANYEMA— SINGULAR CUSTOM. 



J'T was with strange feelings that Stanley caught from 
r- the last ridge the sparkling waters of Tanganika. 
Sweet associations were awakened at the sight, as he 
remembered with what a thrilling heart he first saw it 
gleam in the landscape. Then it was the end of a long, 
wasting and perilous journey — the goal of his ambition, 
the realization of his fondest hopes ; for on its shores he 
believed the object for w^hich he had toiled so long w^as 
r(.'sting. No weicomer sight ever dawned on mortal eye 
tlian its waters as they spread away on the horizon ; and. 
tliough he should see it a hundred times, it will never 
appear to him like any other sheet of water. He has 
formed for it an attachment that will last forever; and 
Avhenever in imagination it rises before him, it will appear 
like the face of a friend. 

As he now descended to Ujiji, it w^as wdth sensations as 
though he were once more entering civilized life, for there 
was something almost homelike about this Arab colony. 
People dressed in civilized garments were moving about 
the streets, cattle were coming down to the lake to drinlv, 
and domestic animals scattered here and there made quite 
a, domestic scene. 

434 



THE MYSTERY OF LAKE TANGANIKA. 485 

At jfirst sight, it seems strange that Stanley should have 
selected this lake as the next scene of his explorations* 
He had already, with Livingstone, explored thoroughly 
the upper half of it, and passed part way down the wes- 
tern side ; Livingstone had been at the foot of it, and to 
croAvn all, he had heard, before leaving Zanzibar, that Came- 
ron had explored the entire southern portion, so that really 
there was nothing for him to do, but follow a path which 
had been already trodden. To employ an expedition fitted 
out at so great a cost, and spend so much valuable time in 
going over old ground, seems an utter waste of both time 
and labor, especially when such vast unexplored fields 
spread all around him. But there was a mystery about 
Tanganika, that we sus23ect Stanley did not believe 
Cameron had solved, and which he meant to clear up. 
Here was a lake over three hundred miles long, with per- 
haps a hundred streams, great and small, running into it, 
and yet with no outlet, unless Cameron had found it, which 
he thinks he did. To find this was the chief object of tlie 
expedition Stanley and Livingstone made together to the 
north end of the lake. They had heard that the Kusi zi 
E-iver at that extremity was the outlet, but they found it 
instead a tributary. In fact, they proved conclusively th*it 
there was no outlet at the northern end, and it therefore mwst 
be at the southern, and if so, the commencement of a ri\'or 
that would become a mighty stream before it reached the 
ocean. But no such stream was known to exist. TJie 
Caspian Sea has large and rapid rivers flowing into it, but 
no outlet, yet it never fills up. Evaporation, it is supposed, 
accounts for this. But the Caspian is salt, w^hile the Tan- 
ganika is fresh water, and such a large body of fresh water 
as this was never known to exist without an outlet, and if 
it could be that evaporation was so great as to equal all the 
water that runs into it, it would not remain so fresh as it is. 



iS6 LUKUGA CREEK. 

We said, when sketching the route of Cameron, that we 
omitted his explorations on this lake because it would be 
better to take them with Stanley's, as the main object of 
both was the same*. We will first let Cameron state his 
own case. He started with two canoes and thirty-seven 
men, and sailed down the eastern shore of the lake, now 
ravished with the surpassing beauty of the scene composed 
of lake and sky, and smiling shores, and again awed by 
beetling cliffs — one evening camping on the green banks 
and watching the sun go down behind the purple peaks^ 
and another drenched with rain, and startled by the vivid 
lightning and awful thunder crashes of a tropical storm, 
yet meeting with no incident of any peculiar interest to 
the reader. The natives were friendly, and he describes 
the different villages and customs of the people and their 
superstitions, which do not vary materially from other 
native tribes. At last, on the 3d of May, entered the 
Lukuga Creek, which a chief told him was the outlet of 
the lake. He says that the entrance was more than a 
mile wide, ''but closed up by a grass sand-bank, with 
the exception of a channel three or four hundred 
yards wide. Across this there is a rill where the surf 
breaks heavily, although there was more than a fathom of 
water at its most shallow part.'' The next day he went 
down it four or five miles, until navigation was rendered 
impossible, owing to the masses of floating vegetation. 
Here the depth was eighteen feet, and breadth six hundred 
yards, and the current a knot and a half an hour. The 
chief who accompanied him said that it emptied into the 
Lualaba. He tried in vain to hire men to cut a passage 
through the vegetation that he might explore the river. 
This was all the knowledge he obtained by actual observa- 
tion, the rest of his information being obtained from the 
natives. 



A yiLLAGE MASSACRED. 487 

Now, we must sav, that tliis is a sorry exhibit for the 
outlet to a lake almost twice as long as Lake Ontario. 
That such an immense body of water should trickle away 
at this rate seems very extraordinary. Stanley at Ujiji 
started on foot inquiries respecting this stream, and found 
Cameron's guide, who stoutly denied that the river flowed 
south from the lake. Another veteran guide corroborated 
this statement, while many others declared that before 
Cameron came, they had never heard of an outflowing 
river. 

These contradictory statements, together with the uni- 
versal testimony that the lake was continually rising, the 
truth of which he could not doubt, as he saw palm-trees 
standing in the market-place when he was there in 1871, 
now one hundred feet out in the lake — made him resolve 
to explore this stream himself. He started on the 11th 
of June, and three days after landed to take a hunt, and 
soon came upon a herd of zebras, two of which he bagged, 
and thus secured a supply of meat. 

On the 19th, on approaching a large village, they were 
astonished to see no people on the shore. Landing, they 
were still more astonished at the death-like silence that 
reigned around, and advancing cautiously came upon corpses 
of men and women transfixed with spears or with their 
heads cut off. Entering into the village they found that 
there had been a wholesale massacre. A descent had been 
made upon the place, but by whom no one was left to tell, 
and its entire population put to death. 

As Stanley proceeded, he found other evidences of the 
steady rise of the lake. He continued on his course, find- 
ing the same varied scenery that Cameron did, with 
nothing of peculiar interest occurring, except to the travel- 
ers themselves, and at length came to the Lukuga Creek. 
He found various traditions and accounts here — one native 



488 THEORY OF THE MYSTERY. 

said the water flowed botli ways. The spot on which 
Cameron encamped, some two years before, was covered 
with water, another evidence that the lake was rising. He 
very sensibly says that the "rill,'' which Cameron states 
runs directly across the channel, is conclusive evidence 
that the Lukuga runs into, instead of out of the lake, for it 
must be formed by the meeting of the inflowing current 
and the waves. An outpouring stream driven onward by 
waves would make a deep channel, not a dam of sand. 
He tried several experiments, by which he proved, to his 
entire satisfaction, that the stream flowed in the lake 
instead of being its outlet. Having settled this question 
he set about finding the other river, which the natives 
declared flowed out or westward. After traveling some 
distance inland he did find a place were the water flowed 
west; it was, however, a mere trickling stream. His ac- 
count of all his explorations here, and the traditions of the 
natives and description of the formation of the country and 
probable geological changes is quite lengthy, but posseses 
but little interest to the general reader. 

The result of it all, however, is, he believes, that the 
Lukuga was formerly a tributary of the lake, the bed of 
which at some former time was lifted up to a higher levd, 
that the whole stretch of land here has been sunk lower by 
some convulsion of nature, taking the Lukuga with it, and 
thus making a sort of dam of the land at the foot, which 
accounts for the steady rise of the river year by year ; and 
that in three years the lake will rise above it, and, gather- 
ing force, will tear like a resistless torrent through all this 
mud and vegetation, and, roaring on as the Nile does where 
it leaves the Victoria JSTyanza, sweep through the country 
till it pours its accumulated waters into the Lualaba, and 
thus swell the Congo into a still larger Amazon of Africa. 
This seems to be the only plausible solution of the mystery 



INFLUENCE OF LIVINGSTONE. 489 

Attached to Tanganika. The only objection to it is, no 
8uch convulsion or change of the bed of the Tanganika 
seems to have occurred during this generation, and what 
has become then, for at least seventy years, of all the waters 
these hundred rivers have been pouring into the lake? 
We should like the estimate of some engineer of how many 
feet that lake would rise in fifty years, with all its tribu- 
taries pouring incessantly such a flood of water into it. 
We are afraid the figures would hardly harmonize with 
this slow rise of the lake. It may be that there is a 
gradual filtering of the water through the ooze at the foot, 
which will account for the slow filling up of the great 
basin — a leakage that arrests the process of accumulation. 
But if Stanley's explorations and statements can be relied 
upon, the mystery will soon solve itself and men will not 
have to hunt for an outlet long. He makes its length three 
hundred and twenty-nine geographical miles, and its ave- 
rage breadth twenty-eight miles. 

The wonderful influence of Livingstone over all African 
explorers, is nowhere more visible than here at Ujiji, on 
both Cameron and Stanley. Both had set out with one 
object — to try to complete the work that the great and good 
man's death had left unfinished. His feet had pressed the 
shores of almost every lake either had seen, as well as 
those of others which they had not seen. The man had 
seemed to be drawn on westward until he reached Nyangwe, 
where dimly arose before him the Atlantic Ocean — into 
which the waters flowing past his camp might enter, and 
did enter if they were not the Nile. Discouraged, de- 
serted and driven back, he could not embark on the 
Lualaba and float downward with its current, till he un- 
veiled the mystery that wrapped it. Cameron became 
filled with the same desire, but disappointed, though not 
driven back, he had pressed on to the ocean, into which 
26 



400 S:>IALL-POX Br.IZAKS OUT. 

he had no doubt the river emptied, but by another route. 
And now last comes Stanley, and instead of finishing 
Livingstone's work around the lakes, he, too, is drawn 
forward to the same point. It seemed to be the stopping- 
place, looking-ofT-place of explorations in Africa; and 
although he knew that Cameron had not returned like 
Livingstone, and hence might have discovered all that was 
to be discovered and make his further explorations in that 
direction useless, still he felt he must go on and find out 
for himself. True, there was an interesting district between 
L^jiji and the Lualaba. 

There was the beautiful Manyema region, about which 
Livingstone had talked to him enthusiastically, with its new 
style of architecture, and beautiful women and simjDle- 
minded peoj)le. But those did not form the attraction. 
He must stand* on the spot where Livingstone stood, and 
look off with his yearning desire and see if he could not 
do what this good man was willing to risk all to accom- 
plish. 

At all events, he must move somewhere at once, and 
westward seemed the most natural direction to take, for if 
he stayed in Ujiji much longer the expedition would break 
U23. He found on his return that the small-pox had broken 
out in camj), filling the Arabs with dismay. He had taken 
precaution, on starting, to vaccinate, as he supposed, every 
member of his party, and hence felt safe from this scourge 
of Africa. He did not lose a single man with it on his 
long journey from the sea to the Victoria Kyanza. But 
here it had broken out in Ujiji with such fury that a pall 
was spread over the place and had invaded his camj), so 
that in a few days eight of his men died. 

This created a panic, and they began to desert in such 
numbers that he would soon be left alone. Thirty-eight 
were missing, which made quite a perceptible loss in a 



DESERTION BECOMES CONTAGIOUS. 401 

force of only one hundred and seventy men. The chiefs 
of the expedition were thoroughly frightened, but told 
him that the desertions would increase if he moved west- 
ward, for the men were as much afraid of the cannibala 
there as of the small-pox in their midst. They were told 
horrible stories of these cannibals till their teeth chattered 
with fear. Besides there were hobgoblins — monsters of 
every kind in the land beyond the Tanganika. Stanley 
saw, therefore, that prompt measures must be taken, and he 
at once clapped thirty-two of the discontented in irons, 
drove them into canoes and sent them off to Ukurenga. He 
with the rest followed after by land to Msehazy Creek, 
where the crossing of the lake was to be effected. Reach- 
ing the other side he proceeded to Uguha, where, on 
mustering his forcg, he found but one hundred and twenty- 
seven out of one hundred and seventy, showing that one- 
third had disappeared. Among the last to go, and the 
last Stanley expected would leave him, was young Kalulu, 
whom he had taken home to the United States with him on 
his return from his first expedition. He had him placed in 
school in England for eighteen months, and he had seemed 
devoted to Stanley. A gloom hung over the camj), and 
the desertion was becoming too contagious, and if such men 
as Kalulu could not be trusted, he knew of no one that 
could be, and with, his usual promptness he determined to 
stojD it. Pie therefore sent back Pocoke and a faithful 
chief with a squad of men to capture them. 

Paddling back to Ujiji, they one night came upon six, 
who, after a stout fight, were secured and brought over 
to camp. Afterward young Kalulu was found on an island 
and brought in. This desertion is a chronic disease with the 
Arabs. Their superstitious fears are easily aroused, and 
they are easily tempted to break their contract and leave 
the man to whom they have hired themselves in the lurch. 



492 PECULIAR CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE. 

It was a sudden fear tliat caused tlie Johanna men to 
desert Livingstone, and then, to cover up their dastardly 
conduct, invent a battle, in which they said he was killed. 

Stanley's march to Manyema was noticeable only for 
the curious customs or habits of the people, and on the 5th 
of October he reached the frontier of this wonderful coun- 
try. Livingstone had halted here several months, and this 
was an inducement to Stanley to stop for a few days. The 
weapons of the natives were excellent, and there was one 
peculiar custom that attracted his particular attention — the 
men wore lumps of various form of mud and patches of 
mud on their beard, hair and head, while the women wove 
their hair into head-dresses, resembling bonnets, leaving 
the back hair to wave in ringlets over their shoulders. 
He, as well as Cameron, was struck ^ith their villages, 
which had one or more broad streets running through 
them, one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet wide, 
alongside of which are ranged the square huts, with well- 
beaten, cleanly-kept clay floors, to which they cheerfully 
invite strangers. 

On the 12Lh he reached a village on the Luma, which 
he had been following, where both Livingstone and Came- 
ron left it and turned directly west, to Nyangwe. He, 
however, determined to follow it till it reached the Lualaba, 
and then proceed by this stream to the same place. He 
found the natives kind but timid, with many curious tradi- 
tions and customs. The expedition at length reached the 
Lualaba, moving majestically through the forest and 
making rapid marches, arrived next day at Tubunda. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

tITINGSTONE AT NYANGWE — REMEMBRANCE OF HIM BY THE NATIVES — "THE GOOD MAN" — Hlf 
TROUBLES HERE AWAKEN STANLEY'S PITY— A MAGNIFICENT COUNTRY— GLOWING DESCRIPTION 
OF IT— RUINED BY SLAVERY- THE SLAVE TRADE— ITS CHARACTER— EBONY SKELETONS- - 
HORRIBLE SIGHTS— THE TRADERS— MODE OP CAPTURE— FAITHLESSNESS OF THE PUINCE O? 
ZANZIBAR — EXTRACTS FROM STANLEY'S JOURNAL — A DEPOPULATED COUNTRY — THE "WAY TO 
STOP THE TRAFFIC. 

IN the article on Cameron we said that Nyangwe was 
the farthest point west in Africa ever reached by a 
white man coming in from the east. It is about three 
hundred and fifty miles from Ujiji, or a little over the dis- 
tance across New York State, but the journey is not made 
in one day — Stanley was forty days in accomplishing it. 
Here he found that Livingstone, the first white man ever 
seen there, must have remained from six to twelve months. 
The women he speaks, of he says must be those of tlie dis- 
trict Manyema. He found that Livingstone had made a 
profound impression on the natives of this region. " Did 
you know him?'' asked an old chief eagerly. Stanley 
replying in the affirmative, he turned to his sons and 
brothers and said : ^^ He knew the good white man. Ah, 
we shall hear all about him." Then turning to Stanley, 
he said : " Was he not a very good man ?" " Yes," replied 
the latter, " he was good, my friend ; far better than any 
white man or Arab you will ever see again." " Ah," said 
the old negro, " you speak true ; he was so gentle and 
patient, and told us such jDleasant stories of the wonderful 
land of the white people — the aged white was a good man 
indeed." 

493 



494 REMEMBRANCE OF LIVINGSTONE. 

Every now and then it leaks out what a strong impres^ 
Bion Livingstone made on Stanley, and he here says : 
" What has struck me while tracing Livingstone to his 
utmost researches — this Arab depot of Nyangwe — revived 
all my grief and pity for him, even more so than his 
own relation of sorrowful and heavy things, is, that he 
does not seem to be aware that he was sacrificing himself 
unnecessarily, nor warned of the havoc of age, and that his 
old power had left him. With the weight of years pressing 
upon him, the shortest march w^earying him, compelling 
him to halt many days to recover his strength, and fre- 
quent attacks of illness prostrating him, with neither men 
nor means to escort him and enable him to make practical 
progress, Livingstone was at last like a blind and infirm 
man moving aimlessly about. He was his own worst 
taskmaster." 

Whether Stanley's views of the mental condition of 
Livingstone — growing out of his sickness and want of 
money while in Nyangwe — are correct or not, one thing is 
true : that after the great explorer had apj)arently reached 
the very point when the problem was to be solved as to 
where the mysterious Lualaba flowed, he waited here till 
he found a caravan going east, and then returned to Ujiji 
" a sorely tried and disapj^ointed man.'' Standing on the 
last point which this intrepid explorer reached, Stanley is 
reminded of his own earnest efforts to induce him to return 
home and recruit, to which the invariable answer was: 
" No, no, no ; to be knighted, as you say, by the queen, 
welcomed by thousands of admirers, yes — but impossible, 
must not, can not, will not be." 

Stanley, on this outmost verge of exploration, remembers 
the words of Livingstone when speaking of the beauties of 
the region lying west of the Goma Mountains, and says, 
'' It is a most remarkable region ; more remarkable than 



A REMARKABLE REGION. 493 

anything I liave seen in Africa. Its woods, or forest, or 
jungles, or brush — I do not know by what particular term to 
designate the crowded, tall, straight trees, rising from an 
impenetrable mass of brush, creepers, thorns, gums, palm, 
ferns of ail sorts, canes and grass — are sublime, even ter- 
rible. Indeed nature here is remarkably or savagely beau- 
tiful. From every point the view is enchanting — the out- 
lines eternally varying, yet always beautiful, till the whole 
panorama seems like a changing vision. Over all, nature," 
he says, " has flung a robe of varying green, the hills and 
ridges are blooming, the valleys and basins exhale perfume, 
the rocks wear garlands of creej)ers, the stems of the trees 
are clothed with moss, a thousand streamlets of cold, pure 
water stray, now languid, now quick toward the north and 
south and west. The whole makes a pleasing, charming 
illustration of the bounteousness and wild beauty of tropi- 
cal nature. But, alas ! all this is seen at a distance ; when 
you come to travel through this world of beauty, the illu- 
sion vanishes — the green grass becomes as difficult to pene- 
trate as an undergrowth, and that lovely sweep of shrub- 
bery a mass of thorns, the gently rolling ridge an inacces- 
sible crag, and the green mosses and vegetation in the low 
•grounds that look so enchanting, impenetrable forest belts." 
He once penetrated into one of these great forests and 
was so overwhelmed by the majesty and solemn stillness 
of the scene, that he forgot where he was, and his imagina- 
tion went back to the primeval days when that great, still 
forest was sown, till the silent trees seemed monuments of 
past history. But still, this district of Manyema (pro- 
nounced in various ways), he does not think so interesting 
as that of Uregga. In speaking of the Lualaba, after 
describing the various w^ays in which it is sj)elled and pro- 
nounced, he says if he could have it his own way he would 
call it " Livingstone Biver, or Livingstone's Lualaba," to 



4DG THE IIOIIRORS OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 

commemorate liis discovery of it and his heroic struggle.-^ 
against adversity to explore it. The letter in which ho 
thus speaks of this region is dated November 1st, 187G. 
In three days he says he is going to explore this mysteri- 
ous river to the utmost of his power. Tavo days previous 
to this letter, he wrote a long one on the horrors of the 
slave trade that casts a pall as black as midnight over all this 
tropical beauty. He says, that from Unyanyembe to Ujiji 
one sees horrors enough, but in this region they are mul- 
tii^lied tenfold. The traffic in slaves is so profitable and 
keeps up such a brisk trade with Zanzibar and the interior 
of Africa, that the native chiefs enter into it on the grand- 
est scale, or rather it is more accurate to say banditti under 
the leadership of so-called chiefs. 

Raids are made on small independent villages, the adults 
slain and hung up to terrify other Tillages into a meek ac- 
quiesence to their demands, and young- men, young women 
and children are marched off to Ujiji, from whence they are 
taken to Zanzibar, becoming, by their cruel treatment on the 
route, living skeletons, before they reach their destination. 
Gangs, from one hundred to eight hundred, of naked, half- 
starved creatures, Stanley met in his travels, and he won- 
ders that the civilized world will let insignificant Zanzibar 
become the mart of such an accursed, cruel traffic. 

There are regular hunting-grounds for slaves. When 
the business is dull, the inhabitants are left to grow and 
thrive, just like game out of season in a gentleman's park ; 
but when the business begins to look uj), the hunt begins 
and the smiling villages become arid wastes. The country, 
long before he reached Nyangwe, was a wilderness, where 
a few years before dwelt a haj)py population. Stanley 
gives extracts from his diary, showing up the horrors of 
this system, that makes the heart sicken as it thinks of 
what is daily transpiring in the heart of this unknown land. 



THE WAY TO STOP IT. 407 

Livingstone saw enough wlien lie was here to awaken 
his deepest indignation, bat since that time the Arabs have 
pushed farther inland, and swept, with the besom of 
destruction, districts that, in - his time, had been but 
slightly touched. 

The trade in ivory is but another name for. trade in 
human beings, and the only real commerce this vast, fruit- 
ful regioa has with Zanzibar is through its captured in- 
habitants, while the slain equal the number of those sent 
into captivity. But, while Mr. Stanley feels keenly the 
disgrace to humanity of this accursed trafiic, he evidently 
does not see so clearly the way to put a stop to it. Oj)- 
posed to filibustering of all kinds and the interference of 
strong powers to coerce weak ones, on the ground of 
humanity or Christianity, because it opens the door too 
wide to every kind of aggression ; in fact, makes it only 
necessary to use some philanthropic catch- word to make the 
annexation of any feeble territory right ; yet he evidently 
thinks there is some limit to the Monroe doctrine of non- 
interference in the affairs of other nations, by the following- 
extract from one of his letters, in which, after discussing 
the whole matter carefidly, he says he writes it " hoping 
he may cause many to reflect upon the fact that there 
exists one little State on this globe, which is about equal 
in extent to one English county, wdth the sole j^rivilege of 
enriching itself by wdiolesale murder, and piracy and com- 
merce in human beings, and that a trafiic forbidden in all 
other nations should be permitted, furtively monopolized 
by the little island of Zanzibar, and by such insignificant 
people as the subjects of Prince Burghosh." Mr. Stanley 
is entirely opposed to filibustering and encroachments of 
strong powers on feeble ones, under the thousand and one 
false pretences advanced in support of unrighteous con- 
quests, yet he evidently thinks little Zanzibar should be 



433 SCENES IN THE SLAVE-MARKET. 

wiped out, or cease to be tlie source and centre of this cruel 
traffic in human beings. One has to travel, he says, in the 
heart of Africa to see all the horrors of this traffic. 

The buying and selling of a few slaves on the coast gives 
no idea of its horrors. At Unyambembe, sometimes a sad 
sight is seen. , At Uganda the trade begins to assume a 
wholesale character, yet it wears here a rather business as- 
pect ; the slaves by this time become hardened to suffering, 
" they have no more tears to shed,'' the chords of sympathy 
have been severed and they seem stolid and indifferent. At 
Ujiji, one sees a regular slave-market established. There 
are " slave-folds and pens," like the stock-yards of railroads 
for cattle, into which the naked wretches are driven by 
hundreds, to wallow on the ground and half-starved on food 
not fit for hogs. By the time they reach here they are 
mere "ebony skeletons," attenuated, haggard, gaunt human 
frames. Their very voices have sunk to a more hoarse 
wliisper, which comes with an unearthly sound from out 
their parched, withered lijDS. Low moans, like those that 
escape from the dying, fill the air, and they reel and stag- 
ger when they attempt to stand upright, so wasted are they 
by the havoc of hunger. They look like a vast herd of 
black skeletons, and as one looks at them in their horrible 
sufferings he cannot but exclaim, " how can an all-merciful 
Father permit such things ?" No matter whether on the 
slow and famishing march or crowded like starved pigs in the 
overloaded canoes, it is the same unvarying scene of hun- 
ger and horror, on which the cruel slave-trader looks with- 
out remorse or pity. It may be asked how are these slaves 
obtained. The answer is, by a systematic war waged in 
the populous country of Marungu by banditti, supported 
by Arabs. These pay guns and powder for the slaves the 
former capture, which enables them to keep up the war. 
These Arabs, who sell the slaves on the coast, furnish the 



HOW SLAVES ARE OBTAINED. 499 

only market for the native banditti of the interior. These 
latter are mostly natives of Unyamwe^e who band together 
to capture all the inliabitants of villages too weak to resist 
them. Marungu is the great productive field of their Sa- 
tanic labors. Here almost every small village is independ- 
ent, recognizing no ruler but its own petty chief. These 
are often at variance with each other, and instead of band- 
ing together to resist a common foe, look on quietly while 
one after another is swept by the raiders. In crossing a 
river, Stanley met two hundred of these wretches chained 
'together, and, on inquiry, found they belonged to the gov- 
ernor of Unyambembe, a former chaperon of Speke and. 
Burton, and had been captured by an officer of the prince 
of Zanzibar. This prince had made a treaty with Eng- 
land to put a stop to this horrible traffic, and yet here was 
one of his officers engaged in it, taking his captives to 
Zanzibar, and this was his third batch during the year. A 

There are two or three entries in Stanley's journal which 
throw much light on the way this hunt for slaves is carried 
on. 

"October 17th. Arabs organized to-day from three dis- 
tricts to avenge the murder and eating of one man and ten 
women by a tribe half way between Kassessa and Nyangwe. 
After six days' slaughter, the Arabs returned with three 
hundred slaves, fifteen hundred goats, besides spears, etc." 

" October 24th. The natives of Kabonga, near Nyangwe, 
were sorely troubled two or three days ago by a visit paid 
them by Uanaamwee in the employ of Mohommed el Said. 
Their insolence was so intolerable that the natives at last 
said ' we will stand this no longer. They will force our 
wives and daughters before our eye if we hesitate any 
longer to kill them, and before the Arabs come we will be 
off.' Unfortunately, only one was killed, the others took 
fright and disappeared to arouse the Arabs with a new 



500 DEPOPULATING THE COUNTRY. 

grievance. To-day, an Arab chief set out for the scene of 
action witli murderous celerity, and besides capturing ten 
slaves, killed thirty natives and set fire to eight villages — 
' a small prize,' the Arabs said." 

"October 17th. The same man made an attack on some 
fishermen on the left bank of the Lualaba. He left at 
night and returned at noon with fifty or sixty captives, 
besides some children." 

"Are these kind of wars frequent ?" asked Stanley. 

"Frequent!" was the reply, "sometimes six or ten times 
a month." 

One of these captives said to Stanley, on the march from 
Mana to Manibo, "Master, all the plain lying between 
Mana, Manibo and Nyangwe when I first came here eight 
years ago, was populated so thickly that we traveled 
through gardens, villages and fields every quarter of an 
hour. There were flocks of goats and black pigs around 
every village. You can see what it now is." He saw that 
it was an uninhabited wilderness. At that time, Living- 
stone saw how the country w^s becoming depopulated 
before the slave-traders, but says Stanley, "Were it jDossi- 
ble for him to rise from the dead and take a glance at the 
districts now depopulated, it is probable that he would be 
more than ever filled with sorrow at the misdoings of these 
traders." 

He thinks there is but one way of putting a perjDctual 
end to this infernal trafiic, and that is by stopj)ing it in 
the interior. English and American cruisers on the coast 
can have but partial success. The course of the khedive 
of Egypt, as described in the article in Baker's expedition, 
is the true one. Annex the interior of Africa to some 
strong power and establish stations on the great highways 
over which these traders are compelled to transport their 
human chattels, where they will be pounced upon and 



DEPOPULATING THE COUNTRY. 501 

made to give up their captives, and the trade will soon 
cease from its being too hazardous and unprofitable. 

Portugal has no right to the west coast which it claims. 
Let England, or it and America together, claim and exercise 
sovereignty over it and it will need no cruisers on the coast 
to stop the trade in slaves. At any rate, it is high time the 
Christian nations of the world put a stop to this disgrace 
to humanity. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

STANLEY MEETS TIPO-TIPO, THE FRIEND OP CAMEBON— LEARNS ALL ABOUT CAMERON'S MOVE- 
MENTS—STANLEY WARNED NOT TO GO ON— FEARFUL STORIES— CONTRACTS WITH TIPO-TIPO TO 
ESCORT IlIM SIXTY CAIMPS— SELF-RELLVNCE OF STANLEY— WOMEN AN OBSTACLE IN THE WAY OP 
ADVANCING- -NYANGWE— ITS MARKET— A LIVELY SCENE— THE TWO CHIEFS— A LARGE HAREM 
—THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS— STRENGTH OF THE EXPEDITION. 

ARRIVING near Nyangwe, one of the first to meet 
liim was the Arab, Tipo-tipo, or Ti|)0-tib, or Tippu- 
tib (which is the proper spelling, neither Cameron or Stan- 
ley seems to know), who had conducted Cameron as far as 
Utotera or the Kasongo country, as described in the ac- 
count of that traveler's journey. He was a sjDlendid speci- 
men of a man pliysically, and just the one to give Stanley 
all the information he wanted resjDCcting Cameron's move- 
ments. He told him that the latter wanted to follow the 
river to the sea, but that his men were unwilling to go ; 
besides, no canoes could be obtained for the purj^ose. He 
also told- him that, after staying a long time at Kasongo, 
he had joined a company of Portuguese traders and pro- 
ceeded south. 

One thing was clear ; Cameron had not settled the great 
problem that Livingstone wished of all things to solve — 
this great unfinished work of his had been left for him to 
complete, or leave it to some future, more daring or more 
successful explorer. Could he get canoes — could he sur- 
mount difficulties thai; neither Livingstone nor Cameron 
were able to overcome ? were the grave questions he asked 
himself. He had long dialogues with Tipo-tij^o and other 
Arab chiefs, all of whom dissuaded him from attempting 

502 




CHIEF'S HOME AT NlA.NGW^. 




NYANGW:^. 



A FASCINATING POSSIBILITY. 505 

to follow the Lualaba by land, or trying to get canoes. 
They told him frightful stories of the cannibals below — of 
dwarfs striped like zebras and ferocious as demons, with 
poisoned arrows, living on the backs of elephants, of 
anacondas, of impenetrable forests — in short, conjured up 
a country and people that no stranger who placed any 
value on his life would ever encounter. 

From the fact that the Lualaba flowed north to a dis- 
tance beyond the knowledge of the natives, was doubtless 
one, and perhaps the chief, reason why Livingstone sus- 
pected it emptied into the Nile. Stanley now knew better. 
How far north it might flow before it turned he could not say, 
yet he felt certain that turn west it would, sooner or later, 
and empty into the Atlantic Ocean — and the possibility of 
his tracing it, had a powerful fascination for him. Its course, 
he knew, lay through the largest half of Africa, which was a 
total blank. Here, by the way, it is rather singular that 
Stanley, following Livingstone, who alone had explored 
Lakfi Bembe, and made it the source of the Lualaba, adopts 
his statement, while Cameron, on mere hearsay, should 
assert that its source was in marshes. The river, after 
leaving the lake, flows two hundred miles and empties into 
Lake Mweru, a body of water containing about one thou- 
sand eight hundred square miles ; issuing from which, it 
takes the name of Lualaba, which it holds and loses by 
turns as it moves on its mighty course for one thousand 
one hundred miles, till it rolls, ten miles wide at its mouth, 
into the broad Atlantic as the Congo. 

Stanley, from first to last, seemed to have a wonderful 
power not only over the Arabs that composed his expe- 
dition, as we have before mentioned, but over all those 
with whom he came in contact in his explorations. Not- 
withstanding all the horrors depicted as awaiting any 
attempt to advance beyond Nyangwe, this Tipo-tipo 



506 CONTRACT WITH TIPO-TIPO. 

agreed, for $5,(X)0, to accompany him with a strong es^cort 
a distance of sixty camps, on certain conditions. That he 
would do it on any conditions was extraordinary, con- 
sidering the fact, if it was a fact, that the last attempt to 
penetrate this hostile territory resulted in the loss of five 
hundred men. The conditions were, that the march 
should commence from Nyangwe- — not occupy more than 
three months — and that if Stanley should finally conclude, 
at the end of the sixty marches, he could not get through, 
he would return to Nyangwe; or if he met Portuguese 
traders and chose to go on to the coast in the direction 
they were moving, he should detail two-thirds of his force 
to accompany said Tipo back to Nyangwe for his pro- 
tection. 

To all these Stanley agreed, except the one promising, if 
he concluded to go on at the end of the sixty marches, to 
give him two-thirds of the men of the expedition to see 
him safely back. On this article of agreement there was 
a hitch, and Stanley showed his Yankee education, if not 
Yankee birth, by putting in a last article, by which if Tipo- 
tipo, through cowardice, should fail to complete his sixty 
marches, he should forfeit his $5,000, and have no escort. 
for his return, and then gave him time to think of it w^hile 
he went to see young Pocoke and confer with him. They 
went over the whole ground together, and Stanley told him 
it was a matter of life and death with both of them ; failure 
was certain, and perhaps a liorrible, death; success was 
honor and glory. It was a fearful picture he drew of the 
possible future, but Frank's ready response was, "go on." 

At this point Stanley reveals one of his strongest char- 
acteristics, which we mentioned in the sketch of him at 
the beginning of the book — the Napoleonic quality of re- 
lying on himself. Ordinary well-established principles and 
rules often condemned the action of Bonaparte — results ap- 



OBSTACLES TO BE OVERCOME. 507 

proved them. So ordinary prudence would have turned 
Stanley back as it did Cameron — the stories told him of 
the character of the tribes in advance — the obstacles he 
would have to encounter, all the mystery, perils and un- 
certainty of the future — the universal warning and fearful 
prognostications of those who were supjDOsed to know best 
• — his isolated condition in the heart • of Africa, every- 
thing that can surround a man to influence him in his ac- 
tions, were gathered there around that lonely man at that 
outpost of civilized enterprise ; yet, falling back on himself, 
rising superior to all outward influences, gauging all the 
probabilities and possibilities by his own clear perceptions 
and indomitable will, he determined to push forward. 
If he could not get canoes, which he was quite sure he could 
not any more than Cameron, then he would try to follow 
the river by land; if that failed, he would make canoes in 
the African forest; if he could not go peaceably, he would 
fight his way, and not turn back till deserted by his own 
men, and was left alone in the midst of a savage, hostile 
people. This determination, under the circumstances, show 
him to be a character of no ordinary stamp, and mark hi??a, 
as we said, as one who, in a revolution, would control the 
stormy elements around him, and mount to power or ;^.o 
the scaffold. 

There were also minor obstacles attending this desperate 
effort to trace the Lualaba to the sea. He had thirteen 
women in his exj)edition, wives of his chief Arabs, some 
of them with young children, others in various stages of 
pregnancy, who would be delivered of children before they 
reached the Atlantic coast, and under what circumstances 
the hour of travail might come, no one knew. It might 
be in the hour of battle, or in the desperate race for life, 
when one hour's delay would be total ruin to the expedition, 

and death to all. It might be in the struggle and fight 
27 



508 AN AFRICAN MARKET. 

around a cataract, or in the day of extreme famine. A 
thousand things had to be taken into consideration before 
resolving on this desperal^e movement. But no matter, the 
obstacles might even be more formidable than represented, 
the risk tenfold greater, his mind was made up — the secrets 
of that mysterious river he would unlock, or his last strug- 
gles and mysterious fate add one more to the secrets it 
held. 

At length the contract with Tipo-tipo to escort him 
sixty marches was made and signed, and then Stanley 
informed his own men of it, and told them that if at the 
end of that time they came across a caravan bound for the 
west coast, part would join it, and the rest might, if they 
wished, return to Nyangwe. They agreed to stand by the 
contract, and Stanley moved forward into Nyangwe, and 
was received by one of the two Arab chiefs, that bear 
sway in the place, with becoming courtesy, who seemed 
surprised at the orderly, quiet march of his force, and still 
more when told that the distance from Tanganika, some 
three hundred and forty miles, had been made in about 
forty days. 

Stanley describes minutely the place and its political 
management, but seems, like Livingstone and Cameron, to 
be particulary struck with its market. This is held every 
fourth day, and from one to three thousand people 
assemble to trade; most of the vendors are women, and 
the animated manner in which trade is carried on amused 
Livingstone exceedingly. Though he could not under- 
stand their language, he could their gestures, which were 
quite as expressive. This pleasant scene, however, was 
marred one day by a messenger stalking into the market 
with ten jaw-bones of men tied to a string and hanging over 
his shoulder, which he boasted of having killed and eaten, 
and described with his knife how he had cut them up. 



A PERFECT BABEL. 509 

Early in the morning of the market-day the river, as 
far as its course can be seen, presents a lively appearance, 
for it is covered with canoes, loaded to their gunwales with 
natives and articles for the market piled on top of each 
other, as they all press toward one point. Amid the 
laughter and jargon of the natives, may be heard the 
crowing of cocks, and squealing of pigs, and bleating of 
goats. Having reached the landing-place the men quietly 
shoulder their paddles and walk up the bank, leaving the 
women to carry the articles up to the market-place. 
These are placed in a large basket and slung on their 
backs by a strap across their forehead. When this great 
crowd of two or three thousand are assembled the babel 
begins. But the talking and chaffering are done by the 
women ; the men move about paying but little attention to 
the bartering, unless something important, as the sale of a 
slave, is going on. The women do not walk about, but 
having selected a spot where they propose to do business, 
they let down the basket, and spreading the articles on the 
ground so as to appear to the best advantage, they squat 
themselves in the basket, where they look like some huge 
shell fish. 

The vendors being thus stationary, the buyers also 
become so, and hence it is always a close, jammed mass of 
human beings, screaming, sweating and sending forth no 
pleasant odor for three or four hours. They do not break 
up gradually, but on the movement of some person a 
general scramble will commence, and in twenty minutes 
the whole two thousand or more be scattered in every 
direction. The markets of this region are held on neutral 
ground by the various tribes, and their feuds are laid aside 
for that day. Except at Nyangwe, uninhabited spots are 
selected. The neighboring chiefs are always present, and 
can be seen lounging lazily about. Stanley counted fifty- 



510 RIVAL CHIEFS. 

seven different articles for sale, ranging from sweet potatoes 
to beautiful girls, while the currency was shells, beads, 
copper and brass wire and palm cloth. 

There are two foreign chiefs at the place, who are very- 
jealous of each other, as they each wish to be regarded by 
the natives as the most powerful. Sheikh Abed, a tall,, 
thin old man with a white beard, occupies the southern 
section of the town, and Muini Dugumbi the other. It 
has not been long an Arab trading post, for Dugumbi is 
the first Arab that came here, and that was no later than 
1868, and pitched his quarters, and now the huts of his 
friends, with their families and slaves, number some three 
hundred. He is an Arab trader from the east coast, and soon 
after his arrival established a harem, composed of more than 
three hundred slave women. Though a rollicking, joking 
man himself, his followers are a reckless, freebooting set. 
The original inhabitants of Nyangwe were driven out by 
Muini Dugumbi, and now occupy portions of both sides of 
the river, and live by fishing, and are said to be a singular 
tribe. Stanley estimated there must have been forty-two 
thousand of them in the region previous to the coming of 
this Arab chief, who spread desolation on every side, of 
which there remain to-day only twenty thousand. 

Stanley remained here only about a week, for Tipo-tipo 
arriving on the 2d of November, he prepared to start on 
his unknown journey. The expedition, when he mustered 
it on the morning of the 4th, numbered one hundred and 
geventy-six, armed with sixty-three muskets and rifles, two 
double-barreled guns and ten revolvers. Besides these, 
there were sixty-eight axes, that Stanley, with great fore- 
thought, purchased, thinking the time might come when he 
would need them as much as his guns. Tipo-tipo brought 
with him seven hundred followers, though only four hun-, 
dred were to accompany the expedition the sixty marches^ 



AN IMPOSING DISPLAY. 511 

Together, tliey made quite a little army, but many of them 
were women and children, who always accompany the 
Arabs in their marches or forays ; still, the force, all drawn 
up, presented an imposing display. A hundred of these 
were armed with flint-lock muskets, the rest with spears 
and shields. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE GREAT MARCH BEGINS— GLOOMY PROSPECTS— MARCH THROUGH A DEXSE FOItEST— AXES USEB 
TO CLEAR THE WAY- A VILLAGE IN THE FOREST— SrPERIORITY OF THE INHABITANTS— THB 
MEN DISHEARTENED— SLOW MARCHING— DISCONTENT— DIFFICITLTIES INCREASE— TIPO-TIPO 
"WISHES TO BE RELEASED FROM HIS ENGAGEMENT — PEOPLE THAT SMELT IRON-ORE — A ROW OF 
SKULLS AS AN ORNAMENT FOR THE VILLAGE— HUNTING SOKOS — THE CANNIBALS— NAKED 
WOMEN— THE LUALABA REACHED— NOT TO BE LEFT AGAIN— THE NATIVES CROSSING THE 
RIVER. 

ON the 5th of November, Stanley, at the head of this 
motley array, turned his back on Nyangwe and his face 
to the wilderness. It was an eventful morning for him. 
Eighteen hundred miles of an unknown country stretched 
before him, wrapped in profound mystery, and peopled with 
races of which the outside world had never heard, and filled 
with dangers that would appall the bravest heart. He felt, 
as he turned and gave a last look at Nyangwe, that the die 
was cast — his fate for good or ill sealed. What sad mis- 
givings must at times have made a feeling of faintness 
creep over his heart — what terrible responsibilities crowded 
upon him ; aye, Avhat gloomy forebodings, in spite of his 
courage, would weigh down his spirit. If he had canoes, 
the starting would have been more cheerful, but the dense 
and tangled forest, whose dark line could be traced against 
the sky, wore a forbidding aspect. They marched but 
nine miles the first day, and though the country was open, 
the manner in which the men bore it, did not promise well 
for their endurance when they should enter the jungle. 
Every pound was carried on men's shoulders, besides their 
weapons, all the provisions, stores of cloth, and beads, 
and wire, the arms and ammunition, of which there had to 

512 



A GLOOMY OUTLOOK. 513 

be a large quantity, (for tliey might be two years fighting 
their way across the continent,) and the boat in sections. 
The next ihorning, Tipo-tipo's hetrogeneous crowd started 
first, which impeded the march by its frequent halts, for 
the women and children had to be cared for. They soon 
entered the gloomy forest of Mitamba, when the marching 
became more difiicult, and the halts more frequent, while 
the dew fell from the trees in great rain-dropSj wetting the 
narrow path they were following, till it became a thick 
mud. The heavy foliage shut out the sky, and the disor- 
dered caravan marched on in gloomy twilight, and at last, 
drenched to the skin, reached a village four miles from 
camp, and waited for the carriers of the boat to arrive. 
These found the boat a heavy burden, for the foliage grew 
so thick and low over the path, that the sections had to be 
pushed by sheer force through it. To make the camp this 
night more gloomy, one of the Arab chiefs who had been 
in the forest before, said, with great complacency, that what 
they had endured was nothing to that which was before 
them. The next day the path was so overgrown and ob- 
structed by fallen trees, that axemen had to go before the 
carriers of the boat to clear the w^ay for them. On the 
10th, having reached Uregga, a village in the very heart 
of the forest, they halted for a rest. The isolated inhab- 
itants seemed to be in advance of those whom Stanley had 
seen. The houses were built in blocks, and were square 
like those of Manyema, and contained various fancy arti- 
cles, some of them displaying a. great taste, and he saw 
curiously carved bits of wood, and handsome spoons, and 
for the first time in Africa, beheld a cane settee. 

The men carrying the boat did not come up for two 
days, and then quite broken and disheartened. Indeed, 
here almost at the very outset, everything seemed to point 
to an early dissolution of the expedition. Not only were 



514 DANGERS AND DISCONTENT. 

his men discontented, but Tipo-tipo, with all his elegance 
of manner and pompous pretence, began to glower and 
grumble, not merely at the hardships his people were com- 
pelled to encounter, but because sickness had broke out in 
his camp. 

On the 13th, the three hundred out of the seven hundred 
of his men branched off on their expedition. The march- 
ing now became not only monotonous but extremely pain- 
ful, and so slow that it took a whole day's march to make 
a distance of nine miles — a rate of progress that Stanley 
saw very clearly would never bring him to the Atlantic 
Ocean. They had now been seven days on the march and 
had made but about forty miles, and scarcely one mile west. 
Thus far their course had been almost due north toward 
tlie great desert of Sahara, and not toward the Atlantic 
Ocean. These ^.^^^ days had been utterly thrown away as 
iuT as progress in the right direction was concerned ; not 
avi inch had been gained, and the whole expedition was 
discouraged. The carriers of the boat begged Stanley to 
throw it away or go back to Nyangwe, while the Arab 
chiefs made no attemj)t to conceal their discontent, but 
openly gave vent to their disinclination to proceed any 
farther. Even the splendid barbarian dandy, Tipo-tipo, 
who prided himself on his superiority to aJl other Arabs, 
began to look moody ; while the increasing sickness in the 
camp cast additional gloom over it. Huge serpents crossed 
their path, while all sorts of wild beasts and vermin peopled 
the dense forest and swarjned around them. 

On the 15th, they made but six miles and a half and 
yet, short as was the distance, it took the men carrying the 
boat twenty-four hours to make it, and all were so weary 
that a halt of an entire day was ordered, to let them rest. 
Added to all this, the forest became ten times more matted 
than before. Both the heavier timber and the undergrowth 



STANLEY DETEBMINED. 515 

grew thicker and thicker, shutting out not only the light 
of the sun, but every particle of moving air, so that the 
atmosphere became suffocating and stifling. Panting for 
breath, the little army crawled and wormed itself through 
the interlacing branches, and when night came down were 
utterly disheartened. Even the elegant Tipo-tipo now 
gave out, and came to Stanley to be released from his 
engagement. It was in vain that the latter appealed to 
his honor, his pride and fear of ridicule should he now 
turn back to Nyangwe. But to everything he could urge, 
the very sensible answer was returned : " If there is nothing 
worse than this before us, it will yet take us, at the rate we 
are going, a year to make the sixty marches and as long a 
time to return. You are only killing everybody by your 
oljstinacy ; such a country was never made for decent men 
to travel in, it was made for. pagans and monkeys.'' 

It is in such circumstances like these that those quails 
ti^s which have made Stanley the most successful explorer 
oi* modern times, exhibit themselves. Napoleon said, 
when speaking of troops, "Even brave soldiers have 
their ^ moment de jpeur,^ " the time when he shrinks. 
But this man seems an exception to this rule. To him 
the moment of fear never seems to come, for he never 
feels the contagion of example. He adheres to his 
resolution to go on if but a handful will stand by him. 
He seems imperious to the contagion that seizes others, and 
a panic in battle would sweep by him unmoved. After 
talking to Tipo-tipo for two hours, he finally got him to 
agree to accomj)any him twenty marches farther. 

There were two things in this village, shut up in the 
heart of the forest, that impressed Stanley much. He 
found here a primitive forge, in which the natives smelted 
iron-ore, found in the neighborhood, and a smithy, in 
tvhich the iron was worked up into instruments of alj 



516 SOKO SKULLS. 

kinds, from a small knife to a cleaver ; hatchets, hammers, 
even wire and ornaments for the arms and legs were made. 
How this rude people, to whom even an Arab trader had 
never come, should have discovered the properties of iron- 
ore, how to disengage the iron and then work it into every 
variety of instruments, seems inexplicable. The whole 
must have been the product of the brain of spme native 
genius. 

The other remarkable thing was a double row of skulls, 
running the entire length of the village, set in the ground, 
leaving ^e naked, round top glistening in the sun. There 
were nearly two hundred of them. Amazed, he asked his 
Arabs what they were, they replied " soko skulls." The 
soko, Cameron calls a gorilla, and we have no doubt many 
of the remarkable stories abobt gorillas refer to this monkey. 
But Livingstone says it is an animal resembling the gorilla, 
and his account of their habits shows they are not the 
fierce, fearless gorilla that is afraid of neither man nor beast. 
It is about four feet ten inches in height, and often walks 
erect, with his hands resting on his head, as if to steady him- 
self. With a yellow face, adorned with ugly whiskers, a 
low forehead and high ears, he looks as if he might be 
a hideous cross between a man and a beast. His teeth, 
though dog-like in their size, still slightly resemble those 
found in the human head. The fingers are almost exactly 
like the natives. He is cunning and crafty, and will often 
stalk a man or woman as stealthily as a hunter will a 
deer. He seldom does much damage, unless driven to bay, 
when it fights fiercely. It takes great pleasure in nabbing 
children 'and carrying them up into a tree and holding 
them in his arms, but if a bunch of bananas is thrown on 
the ground he will descend, and, leaving the child, seize it. 
It seldom uses its teeth, and then, if it is a man he is in 
conflict with, will bite off his finp-ers and let him go. They 



A PKACTICAL JOKE. 519 

are hunted and trapped by the natives for their flesh, of 
which they are very fond. A man hunting for them one 
day, having maimed one, in his attempt to spear it, the soko 
grabbed the spear, and breaking it, seized the man. The 
latter calling to his companion for help, he bit off his 
fingers and ran away. 

A native was hoeing in his field one morning, when a 
soko, creeping up steaUhily behind, threw his arms around 
him. The latter roared in terror, when the soko, grinning 
and giggling like a demon, let go and ran away, apparently 
enjoying the practical joke hugely. He will often snatcli 
up a child, and after pinching and scratching it, let it go. 

Stanley, not satisfied with the answer of his men, sent 
for the chief and asked him what those skulls were. He 
said of the sokos, which they hunt because of the destruction 
they make of the bananas, and that their meat was good. 
Stanley offered him a hundred cowries if he would bring 
one to him alive or dead. The chief went into the woods 
in search of some, but at evening returned without any. 
He, however, gave him a portion of the skin of one. 
Stanley had the curiosity to take two of these skulls home 
with him, and gave them to Professor Huxley to examine, 
who reported they were the skulls of a man and woman. 
The former, therefore, comes to the conclusion that they 
were all the skulls of men and women who had been eaten 
bv these cannibals. But we do not believe this conclusion 
fairly justifiable, from Professor Huxley's report on two 
skulls. In the first place, the Arabs would scarcely have 
made such, a mistake as this implies — they had seen too 
many soko skulls. In the second place, the chief corrobo- 
rated their statement, and he had no reason for telling a 
falsehood. If those skulls were placed thus prominently 
in the streets, it was to boast of them and not to lie about. 
It is far more likely that there were a few human skulk 



520 THE LUALABA REACHED. 

mixed in with the sokos, and when Stanley asked for a 
couple, the largest and best-shaped were selected for him, 
and these proved to belong to human beings. His hunting 
for one was certainly not to prove he had told Stanley a 
falsehood. The same peculiarity was noticed here that 
Baker mentions of the natives of Fatiko — the women go 
naked, while the men are partly covered with skins. The 
whole apparel of the women is an apron four inches 
square. 

On the 19th of March, they reached the Lualaba, 
sweeping majestically through the silent forest. Stanley 
immediately determined there should be no more tangled 
forests for him, but that broad current of the river should 
bear him to the Atlantic Ocean or to death. The camp 
was prepared and the breakfast eaten, while Pocoke was 
getting the Lady Alice screwed together. Soon she was 
launched on the stream, amid the huzzas of the party. 
Although the river here was nearly three-quarters of a 
mile wide, and the opposite shore appeared like an unin- 
habited forest, sharp eyes had detected the wonderful 
apparition that had appeared on the farther shore, and the 
news spread so rapidly, that when Stanley in the Lady 
Alice approached it, he saw the woods alive with human 
beings, and several canoes tied to the shore. He hailed 
them, and tried to make a bargain with them to transport 
his fjarty across. They refused point-blank, but after- 
wards seemed to relent and offered to exchange blood-' 
brotherhood with them, and appointed a place on a 
neighboring island where the ceremony should be per- 
formed. It was, however, discovered that it was a trea- 
cherous plot to murder them, and, but for precautions 
taken in view of its possibility, there would have been a 
fight. 

Stanley now determined to cross his men by detachments 



CKOSSING THE KIVEE. 521 

in his own boat. He .took over thirty above the village, 
and then told the natives that they had better assist him 
in carrying over the rest, for which they should be well 
paid. They consented, and the whole expedition was 
safely landed on the left bank of the river. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



CONGO CHANGED TO LIVINGSTONE— FRIGHTENED NATIVES— THE MARCH— DESERTED VILLAGES- 
THE LAND PARTY LOST— STANLEY'S ANXIETY— A DASH ON THE NATIVES, ONE MAN KILLED— 
ULEDI DISPATCHED AFTER THE MISSING PARTY— THE LOST FOUND— THE MARCH— A FLOATING 
HOSPITAL— PASSING RAPIDS— TIPO-TIPO WISHES TO TURN BACK— A QUEER VILLAGE— INCREAS- 
ING SICKNESS— THE DEAD EVERY DAY THROWN INTO THE RIVER— A FIGHT— MARCHING ON— A 
DESPERATE FIGHT OF TWO DAYS— A -SUCCESSFUL STRATAGEM— TIPO-TIPO RESOLVES TO LEAVE— 
STANLEY'S SPEECH TO HIS MEN— CHRISTMAS DAY— A FROLIC— A BOAT RACE— THE PARTIES 
SEPARATE— A TOUCHING FAREWELL— A SAD DAY— STANLEY TRIES TO AROUSE THE MEN. 



HAVING been ferried across the river by the natives, 
Stanley felt quite secure of the friendship of this 
first tribe he had met on the banks of the Lualaba. But 
here he resolved to change its name to Livingstone, 
which ever after he continues to call it. Villages lined 
the banks, all, he says, adorned with skulls of human 
beings. But instead of finding the inhabitants of them 
friendly, there were none to be seen ; all had mysteriously 
disappeared, whether from fright or to arouse the tribes 
below, it was impossible to determine; it seemed from the 
former, for notwithstanding they had overcome their first 
fear so much as to ferry the ex]3edition across the river, 
they had not taken away their canoes, nor carried with 
them their provisions. Leaving these untouched, as a sort 
of promise to the tribes below that their property should 
be held sacred, the expedition took up its march down the 
river. Stanley, with thirty-three men, went by water, in 
the Lady Alice, while Tipo-tipo and young Pocoke with 
the rest of the party marched along the bank. Village 
after village^ was passed ; the natives uttering their wild 
war-cry, and then disappearing in the forest, leaving every- 

522 



FIEST FIGHT O:!^ THE RIVER. 523 

thing behind them. Whether it was a peaceful village, or 
a crowded market-j)lace they j^assed, they inspired the 
same terror, and huts and market-places were alike de- 
serted. This did not promise well for the future. 

In the middle of the afternoon, Stanley, in the Lady 
Alice, came to a river one hundred yards wide. Knowing 
that the land party could not cross this without a boat, he 
halted* to w^ait for its approach, in order to ferry it over, 
and built a strong camp. This was on November 23d, 
1876, At sunset it had not arrived, and he became 
anxious. Next morning it did not make its appearance, 
and still more anxious, he ascended this river, named the 
Euigi, several miles, to see if they had struck it farther 

up- ^ 

Keturning, in the afternoon, without hearing anything 

of the expedition, he was startled, as he approached the 
campj at the rapid firing of guns. Alarmed, he told the 
rowers to bend to their oars, and sw^eeping rapidly dowji- 
w^ard, he soon came to the mouth of the stream, and found 
it blocked with canoes, filled w^ith natives. Dashing do\^n 
upon them with loud shouts, they fled in every directiou. 
One dead man floating in the stream was the only result 
of the first fight on the Livingstone. 

The day wore away and night came down, and silence 
and solitude rested on the forest stretching along the banks 
of the Ruigi, where he anxiously waited to hear musket- 
shots announcing the arrival of the land party. It was a 
long and painful night, for one of two things was certain : 
Tipo-tipo and Pocoke had lost their way or been attacked 
and overpowered. The bright tropical sun rose over the 
forest east of the river Ruigi, but its banks were silent and 
still. Stanley could not endure the suspense any longer, 
and dispatched Uledi, with five of the boat's crew^, to seek 
the wanderers. This Uledi, hereafter to the close of the 



524 THE LOST RETURNED. 

march, becomes a prominent figure. Stanley had made 
him coxswain of tlie boat Lady Alice, and he had proved 
to be one of tlie most trustworthy men of the expedition, 
and was to show himself, in its future desperate fortunes, 
one of the most cool and daring, worthy, only half-civilized 
as he was, to stand beside Stanley. The latter gave him 
strict directions as to his conduct in hunting up the fugi- 
tives — especially respecting the villages he might •come 
across. Uledi told him not to be anxious about him — he 
would soon find the lost party. 

Stanley, of course, could do notliing but wait, though 
filled with the most anxious thoughts. The river swept 
by calmly as ever, unconscious of the troubled hearts on 
its banks; the great forest stood silent and still in the 
tropical sun, and the day wore away as it ever does — • 
thoughtless of the destinies its hours are settling, and 
indifferent to the human suffering that crowds them. But 
at four o'clock a musket-shot rang out of the woods, and 
soon Uledi appeared leading the lost party. They had 
gone astray and been attacked by the natives, who killed 
three of their number. Luckily they captured a prisoner, 
whom they forced to act as a guide to conduct them back 
to the river, and, after marching all day, met Uledi in 
search of them. They were ferried across and allowed to 
scatter abroad in search of food, which they took wherever 
found, without any regard to the rights of the natives. 
Necessity had compelled Stanley to relax his strict rules 
In this respect. 

The^next day the march was continued as before, com- 
munication being kept up by those on the land and on the 
water by drum-taps. The villages they passed were de- 
serted — every soul fleeing at their approach. Proceeding 
down the river, they came across six abandoned canoes 
more or less injured. Kepairing these, they lashed them 



BOATS UPSET. 525 

together as a floating hospital for the sick of the land 
party, the number of which had greatly increased from the 
exposures and hardships they were compelled to undergo. 
In the afternoon they came upon the first rapids they had 
met. Some boats, attempting their descent, were upset and 
attacked by the natives, but they were beaten off. Four 
Snider rifles were lost, which brought down on Pocoke, 
who had permitted the Arabs to run this risk, a severe re- 
buke, and a still severer one on the Arab chief, who had 
asked the former to let him make the attempt. The chief, 
enraged at the rej)roaches heaped upon him, went to Tipo- 
tipo, and declared that he would not serve Stanley any 
longer. This, together with the increased hostility of the 
natives, and alarming sickness, and dangerous rapids^ 
brought the head chief to Stanley with a solemn appeal to 
turn back before it was too late. But the latter had 
reached a point where nothing but absolute fate could tu] n 
him back. 

The rapids were passed in safety by the canoes — tlie 
Lady Alice being carried on mens' shoulders around theia. 
Natives were occasionally met, but no open hostility wus 
shown for several days. The river would now be con- 
tracted by the bold sliores, and rush foaming along, and 
now spread into lake-like beauty, dotted with green islands, 
the quiet abodes of tropical birds and monkeys, that filled 
the air with a jargon of sounds. 

On the 4th of December they came to a long, straggling 
town, composed of huts only seven feet long by five wide, 
standing apart, yejt connected by roofs — the intervening 
space covered, and common to the inhabitants of both the 
adjacent huts. It was, however, deserted, like the rest. 
This persistent desertion was almost as dispiriting as open 
hostility, and an evil fate seemed to hang over the expedi- 
tion. The sickness kept increasing, and day after day all 
28 



526 A SERIES OF VILLAGES. 

tliat broke the monotony of the weary hours was the toss- 
ing over now and then dead bodies into the river. The 
hmd party presented a heart-broken appearance as they 
crawled, at night, laden with the sick and dying, into 
camj). At this place Stanby found an old, battered, aban- 
doned canoe, ca23able of carrying sixty people. This he 
repaired, and added it to his floating hospital. 

On the 8th of December he came to another large town, 
the inhabitants of wdiich, in spite of all attempts to make 
peace, were determined to fight, and with fourteen canoes 
approached the bank on which the land party were en- 
camped, and commenced shooting their arrows. This 
lasted for some time, when Stanley took the Lady Alice 
and dashed among them, pouring in at the same time such 
a close and deadly fire that they turned and fled. 

The story of the slow drifting and marching of the 
expedition dow^n the Livingstone is a very monotonous one 
to read, but was full of the deepest interest to the travelers, 
for the forest on either side of the great river seemed filled 
with horns and war-drums, while out from a creek or from 
behind an island canoes would dart and threaten an attack. 
Floating peacefully through those primeval forests on this 
stately river, bearing them ever on to the unknown, would 
make the heart heave with emotion, but when danger and 
death were ever j)resent, the intensest feelings were aroused. 

At length they came to a series of villages lining the 
bank and surrounded with plenty. There was a large 
23opulation, and the natives, at the apj^roach of Stanley, 
blew their ivory horns and beat their drums, and isoon a 
whole fleet of canoes, heavily manned, attacked the little 
party in the boat. By a bold dash Stanley was able to 
seize and occupy the lower village, where he quickly in- 
trenched himself. The savages came down in immense 
uumbers, fillinix the air with hideous shouts and rushed on 



A BOLD TEICK. 527 

the slender defenses with desperate fury. It was astonishing 
to see these men, to whom iirearms were new, show so Httle 
fear of them. They were the boldest fighters Stanley had 
as yet encountered in Africa, and though he punished them 
.severely they kept up the attack, with short intervals 
between, for nearly two days. At last the appearance of 
TijDO-tipo along the bank with the land forces made them 
beat a retreat, which they did with a tremendous noise of 
horns and loud threats of vengeance. Out of the few with 
Rtanley, four were killed and thirteen wounded, or seventeen 
out of forty — nearly half of the whole force. This showed 
desperate fighting, and as the enemy advanced by hundreds 
their loss must have been fearful. 

Stanley, who vras equal in stratagem to an American 
Indian, j^layed them a tiick that night which took all their 
bravado out of them. Waiting till he thought they were 
asleep, he took the Lady Alice, and Frank Pocoke a canoe, 
and, both with muffled oars, rowed up the river to find their 
camp. It was a rainy, dark and windy night, and, hence, 
favorable to the enterprise he had in hand, and his move- 
ments were undiscovered. By the light of a fire on the 
bank he ascertained the location of the camp, and advanc- 
ing cautiously saw some forty canoes drawn up on shore. 
Bidding Frank go down stream and lie to, to catch them as 
they floated down, he quietly cut them all adrift. They 
were caught by the former, and by midnight were at 
Stanley's camp. He knew that he now had them in his 
power, and so in the morning proceeded to their cam23 and 
made offers of peace, which they were glad to accept on 
the condition- that their canoes were returned to them. 
This was agreed to and blood-brotherhood made. Stanley, 
however, whose great need had been canoes, determined 
not to let all these slip through his hands, and retained 
twenty-three, giving back only fifteen. 



528 TIPO-TIPO RELEASED. 

TIpo-tipo now told Stanley that lie would proceed no 
further, his people were dying rapidly, the difficulties of 
marching were increasing and he must return. Thelattersaw 
he was determined to go, although eight marches remained 
to be made, and released him. In truth, now he had boats 
enough to carry his entire expedition, Tipo-tipo, cumbered 
with the sick, would be a burden rather than a help, and 
at the rate they were moving, eight marches, more or less, 
would not amount to much. Besides, marching by land, 
Stanley saw must be given up or they would never get to 
the sea. Thus far they had scarcely made any westing at 
all, having gone almost due north, and were nearly as far 
from the Atlantic Ocean as when they left Nyangwe. 
The only thing he feared was the effect the departure of 
the escort would have on his men. In announcing to them 
that on the sixth day they should start down the river, he 
made them quite a speech, in which he asked them if he 
had not always taken good care of theni and fulfilled all 
his promises, and said that if they would trust him im- 
plicitly he would surely bring them out to the ocean and see 
them safe back to Zanzibar. "As a father looks after his 
children,'' he said, " so will I look after you." A shout 
greeted him at the close. One of his chiefs followed in an 
address to the Arabs, while Uledi, the cockswain, spoke 
for the boatmen. 

Preparations for starting were now set on foot, canoes 
mended, provisions gathered and everything provided 
against future contingencies that could be thought of. 
Christmas day came, and the poor fugitives had quite a 
frolic there in the wilderness. The twenty-three boats 
they had captured were christened by the men, amid much 
merriment, and then canoe races followed, rowed by both 
men and women ; all wound up with a wild war-dance on 
the banks of the river. 



A PLAINTIVE FAREWELL SONG. 529 

The next day Tipo-tipo gave a grand dinner. The day 
after, the camps separated, and all intercourse between them 
ceased. 

On the morning of the 28th, Stanley embarked his men 
to the sound of drum and trumpet, and Tipo-tipo hearing 
it in his camp, knew that the parting hour had come, and 
paraded his men on the bank. As the expedition slowly 
floated down the stream toward it, there was heard a deep, 
plaintive chant from the Arabs on the bank, as a hundred 
melodious voices arose in a farewell song; out from the 
dim forest, and over the rippling water it floated, in sweet 
melancholy strains, that touched every heart in that slowly- 
moving fleet of canoes. Louder and louder swelled the 
cbant, increasing in volume and pathos, as the wanderers 
di-ew nearer. As they approached the Arab camp they 
saw the singers ranged in a row along the bank. Passing 
slowly by them, they waved a silent adieu, for their hearts 
W(;re too full to speak. On they floated, and still the chant 
went on, until, at last, it died away in the distance, and 
sadness and silence rested on the stream. No one spoke a 
word, and Stanley cast his own eyes, not wholly dry, over 
the crowded boats, and was moved with the deepest pity. 
Nearly all were sitting with their faces hidden in their 
hands and sobbing. Those they were leaving behind were 
about to return to their homes — they to enter new dangers, 
out of which they might never emerge. No wonder they 
were sad, and it is singular that not a man, even of those 
who had before deserted, asked permission to go back. It 
was a mournful scene there in the wilds of Africa, and on 
that mysterious river, and Stanley said it was the saddest 
day in his whole life. 

The. casting of their fortunes in this desperate venture 
of his, shows what wonderful influence he had acquired 
over them, and with what devotion he had inspired them. 



530 EFFORT TO ROUSE THE MEN. 

No wonder his heart clung to them to the last, and he 
would never leave them, until he saw them safe again in 
their homes. In order to rouse the men, he shouted, 
"Sons of Zanzibar, lift up your heads and be men. What 
is there to fear? Here we are all together, like one family, 
with hearts united, all strong with the purpose to reach our 
home. See this river, it is the road to Zanzibar. When 
saw you a road so wide? Strike your paddles deep,*and 
cry out * Bismillah,' and let us forward." No shout greeted 
this appeal, as with sickly smiles they paddled downward. 
Uledi tried to sing, but it was such a miserable failure that 
his sad companions could not restrain a smile. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

i. COMMON FATE BINDING ALL—" WE WANT TO EAT YOU "—THE HOME OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS— 
THE PEIiSUAJIVE ELOQUE.N'CE OF THE CANNIBAL PKISONEKS— A NOVHL S::XSATION— A PEACE- 
FUL TRIBE— THE CANNIBALS PREVENT A FIUIIT— A SUDDEN ATTACK— A SUCCESSFUL STRATA* 
GEM — ANOTHER FIGHT— A HARD CARRY AROUND THE FALLS— AN ADVANCED TRIBE— RIVER 
FULL OF ISLANDS— MAGNIFICENT SCENERY— STANLEY'S EXPEDITION— A GRAND BARBECUE— A 
NECF^SARY FIGHT— MGHT WORK— SEVENTY-EIGHT HOURS' INCESSANT TOIL— PASS'^NG T::B 
RAPIDS— A LOST MAN— A THRILLING SPECTACLE— GREAT DARING— LOST MEN— A FP.ARFUL 
IflGHT- RESCUE IN THE MORNING— BRAVE ULEDI— A CARRY BOUND THE FALLS— A BRIi.LIANT 
MANOEUVRE- IN A NET— MAN MEAT— ANOTHER FIGHT— THE CONGO STARTS FOR THE SEA— 
ANOTHER FIGHT— A DESERTED VILLAGE— AROUND THE FALLS— MUSKETS— A FIGHT— HOME OF 
THE HIPPOPOTAMI— A NEW WAR-CRY— ASTONISHMENT OF THE NATIVES AT SEEING A WHITE 
MAN— MORE ENEMIES— STANLEY'S SPEECH— A FIGHT— THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN MUSKETS 
AGAINST FORTY-FOUB—STARVING— FRIENDLY SAVAGES— ABUNDANT PROVISIONS— DEATH AND 
BURIAL OF A 'CHIEFTAIN'S WIFE — A FRIENDLY TRIBE— BEAUTIFUL WOMEN— SERPENTS IN 
CAMP— THE LAST AND FIERCEST FIGHT— STANLEY POOL— FRIENDLY CHIEFS— CURIOUS INTER- 
VIEW WITH KING ITSI— A GENERAL PEACE. 

STANLEY was now like Cortez wlien he burned his 
si lips behind him — there was no returning — one and 
all must move on together to a common fate. All danger 
of desertion, for the present, was over, and he felt that the 
consciousness of there being no possible escape, and that 
one destiny awaited them all, not only bound them closer 
together, but would make them better fighters. 

At first, on their downward march, they met a peaceful 
tribe, and then a hostile one w^ho would listen to no terms, 
and whose reply to every request for peace was, " We don't 
want you ; we will eat you." They, however, passed by 
unmolested, and swept down the river, astonished to see it 
so thickly populated. That night they encamped in a 
dense jungle, which was found to be the home of the hip- 
popotamus in the dry season. Tipo-tipo had left with 
Stanley two cannibals that he had captured, to be used by 
him in conciliating the savages, as they knew their lan- 

• 531 



532 MEETING CANNIBALS. 

guage. These tried their arts this night on the natives on 
the farther bank, who no sooner espied the strangers, than 
they beat their drams and advanced to attack them. The 
cannibals talked so eloquently and plausibly to them, that 
the savages withdrew and left them in peace. The next 
morning they came to the mouth of a large river named 
Lowwa, one thousand yards wide. 

On the last day of the year, they were moving quietly 
down stream — the heavens bright above them and the 
banks green beside them — when they suddenly heard the 
hated war-drum sound ; and soon the canoes of the natives 
shot out from both shores, and for a moment a collision 
seemed inevitable ; but the two cannibals shouted Sennen- 
iieli ! " peace," so plaintively, that they desisted and the 
little fleet passed on unmolested. But the next day they 
n.xet other boats, which advanced, their crews shouting " we 
will eat you," but they were easily driven off. It pro- 
duced a novel sensation in Stanley to be hailed every day 
and ordered to give himself uj) for a good road. At length 
they came to a peaceful tribe, from whom they obtained 
provisions. 

Gathering such information as they could from the 
natives, they now continued on very quietly, when they 
were suddenly attacked by savages in canoes of immense 
size. One, eighty-five feet long, singled out the Lady 
Alice and made for it. The crew of the latter waited till 
it came within fifty feet, and then, pouring in a deadly 
volley, made a dash to run it down. The frightened crew, 
jast before the collision, jumped overboard, leaving the big 
boat in the hands of Stanley. 

Keeping on, after this little fight, they passed small 
tributaries, and at length heard the roar of a cataract 
below. But while they were listening to the unwelcome 
sound, there suddenly rose over it the wild, shrill war-cries 



A HARD FIGHT. 533 

of the savages from both sides of the river. There was no 
escape for the expedition now — they must turn and fight. 
Dropping their stone anchors near the bank, they poured 
in their volleys, but, not being able to dislodge them, they 
pulled up their anchors and rowed up stream, where Stan- 
ley divided his forces, and while one attracted the attention 
of the enemy in front, the other landed, and, marching 
across the land, took them in rear. As soon as Stanley 
heard the first shot, announcing its arrival, he landed and 
attacked the enemy in front and routed them, and camped 
for the night undisturbed. 

Next morning, however, the natives appeared again in 
stronger numbers and attacked the camp. The fight was 
kept up for two hours, when a sally was ordered, and they 
charged on the enemy, which, though giving way, kept up 
the fight for four or five hours. Two of Stanley's men 
were killed and ten wounded. The former were thrown 
into the river, for Stanley had determined to bury no more 
men till out of the cannibal country. This defeat of the 
natives gave the expedition a few days' rest, so that this 
first of the series of " Stanley falls," as they were named, 
oould be thoroughly explored, not only for geographical 
purposes, but to ascertain the best way of getting around, 
them. He found that the falls could not be run, and that 
a carry around them some two miles long must be made. 
A path was cleared with axes, and boat and canoes were 
taken .from the water and carried with great labor, yet 
safely, overland, and launched once more on the stream 
without accident, and he anchored in a creek near its en~ 
trance into the main river. Not wishing to remain here, 
the order to advance was given, and soon they were again 
afloat on the great river. Sweeping downward they heard 
the roar of another cataract, and, although the war-horns 
were resounding on every side, encamped on an island in 



534 BEAUTIFUL ISANDDS. 

tlie middle of the river. Tlie Hostile natives on the island, 
tilled with terror, escajDed to the main-land. In the morn- 
ing Stanley explored the island, and found it contained 
five villages, all now deserted— and in them such a variety 
of implements as showed that the inhabitants were adepts 
in the manufacture of all kinds of iron tools. 

The river was full of islands, winding among which, day 
after day, Stanley often found to be the only means of 
escape from the pertinacious cannibals. They presented a 
beautiful appearance with their luxuriant foliage, but while 
the eye was resting on their loveliness, the ear would be 
saluted with the sound of war-drums and hideous shouts. 
Whenever Stanley landed and visited a village from which 
the inhabitants had fled, he would see human bones scat- 
tered around, flung aside like oyster-shells, after the meat 
was removed, and at times the whole expedition felt as if 
they were destined to make a grand luncheon for these 
ferocious man-eaters. 

The next day Stanley began to make preparations to get 
around the falls. The first thing was to clear himself of the 
savages that crow^ded the left bank and were ready to pounce 
on him any moment. So taking thirty-six men he led them 
through the bushes and drove the natives back to their 
villages, a mile distant, and after a desperate struggle, out 
of them. He next cut a narrow path, three miles long, 
around the cataract. This was slow w^ork, and as haste was 
imjDerative, the men were kept at work all night, flaming 
torches lighting up the way and making the gloomy 
shadows of the strange forest deeper still. Camps were 
distributed at short intervals along the route, and to the 
first of these the canoes w^ere carried before daylight. The 
savages made a rush on them but were driven back. At 
night anothei* stretch of path was made, to which the 
canoes and baggage were hurried before the cannibals were 



■ 



A PEKILOUS SITUATION. 537 

astir in the morning. There was less hostility and the work 
went steadily on, and at last, after seventy-eight hours 
of unwearied labor and almost constant fighting the river 
was again reached and the boats launched. This was Jan- 
uary 14th, but though the river had been reached new 
perils awaited them. There was a stretch of two miles of 
rapids that must be passed. After six canoes had been passed 
safely, one was upset, and one of those in it, Zaidi, instead 
of swimming ashore, as the others did, clung to it, and was 
borne helplessly down to the cataract below. But on the 
very verge was a solitary rock on which the boat drifted 
and split — one part getting jammed fast. To this the poor 
wretch clung with the strength of despair, while all around 
leaped and whirled and roared the boiling water. Those 
on shore shrieked in agony, and Stanley was hastily sent 
for. He immediately set to work making a rattan rope, in 
order to let down a boat to him by which he could be 
pulled ashore. But the rope was not strong enough, and 
snapped asunder as soon as the boat reached the heavy suck 
of water just above the falls, and it was whirled into the 
vortex below. Other and stronger ropes were then made 
and another canoe brought up and three ropes lashed to it, 
A couple of men would be needed to paddle and steer the 
boat so that it could reach the unfortunate wretch on his 
23erilous perch, and volunteers were called for. But one 
glance at the wild and angry waves was enough, and no one 
responded. Stanley then appealed to their feelings, when 
the brave Uledi stepped forward and said " I will go." 
Others of the creiv followed, but only one was needed. The 
two stepped calmly into the boat and pushed off — watched 
with intense anxiety by those on shore. Beaching a 
certain distance above the falls, it drifted rapidly down 
toward them, guided by those holding two of the cables on 
gliorc. The third floated from the stern of the boat for the 



538 TERRIBLE SUSPENSE. 

poor wretch on the rock to seize. Attemjit after attempt 
was made to get this within Zaidi's reach, but the whirling 
waters flung it about like a wLip-lash. At length tbe 
boat was lowered so close to the brink of the falls that he 
was able to reach it, but no sooner had he seized it and 
flung himself loose, than he was borne over the edge and 
disappeared below. But he held on to the rope and soon 
his head appeared above the boiling waves, when the word 
was given to haul away. The strain, however, was too 
great, and the cables parted and away dashed the canoe 
toward certain destruction, and a cry of horror arose 
from those on shore, for all three now seemed inevitably 
lost. But Zaidi below, by hanging on to the rope, pulled 
the boat against the rock where it lay wedged. He was 
then pulled up, and the three crouched together on the rock. 
A stone was now tied to about three hundred feet of whip- 
(tord and flung to them, but they failed to catch it. Again 
*^iid again was it thrown only to be pulled in and recast, 
but at last it whirled so close to them that they caught it. 
A heavy rope of rattan was then tied to it and drawn 
across and fastened, and a bridge thus secured. 

But this had taken so much time that night came on 
l)efore they could finish their work ; the three wretched 
men were left to crouch on tlie rock, and wait for the 
morning. All night long they held on to their wild perch, 
while the water rushed, and boiled, and roared around them, 
and the deep thunder of the cataract rising in one deep 
monotone over all, so that they could not hear each other 
speak. 

The next morning, early, the Arabs were set to work 
making more ropes, which were finally hauled across, and 
fastened round the waists of each man, and then, one by 
one, they leaped into the water and were drawn safely 
ashore, amid the shouts of the peo2:)le. 



PEACE BY STRATEGY. 539 

Tliey now set to work cutting a road tliree miles long 
through the woods. Over this the canoes were, with great 
labor, hauled before the savages on the farther side knev^ 
what they were about. But the moment they were afloat, 
they discovered them, and rushed forward with their 
canoes, and the battle commenced. Stanley dashed through 
them, and sweeping down stream for a mile, landed on the 
island where the tribe lived, and quietly detaching twenty 
men, sent them to the villages, while he kept the savages 
at bay. In a short time, the* detachment returued, bring- 
ing with them a crowd of women and children as prisoners, 
and a large herd of sheep. The savages, when they saw 
these marching down to the landing-place, were taken so 
completely aback, that they stopped fighting at once, and, 
withdrew to consult what was best to do in this extraordi- 
nary turn of affairs. They sat in their canoes, waiting to 
see their friends massacred. Negotiations for peace were sov^n 
opened and concluded, and the ceremony of blood-brothcT- 
hood was gone through with, the captives and herds were 
surrendered up, and friendly terms were established. 

The fifth cataract was at the foot of this island, and T^as 
safely passed, and the expedition encamped on the bank of 
the river, on a green plat of ground, and slept undisturbed. 
In the morning, to their unbounded surprise, they found 
themselves inclosed in a net of cord, reaching from the 
shore above the camp, to the shore below it, passing through 
the bushes. Stanley knew what this meant — that they were 
to be speared, when they approached it, like so many wild 
beasts. He at once ordered one of the chiefs, Manwa Sera, 
to take thirty men, and row up the river a short distance 
and land, and march inland, and come up behind those 
lying in wait outside of the net. At the end of an hour 
he ordered men forward to cut the nets, when the firing 
commenced. The savages soon turned and fled, but to 



540 A FURIOUS ATTACK. 

tlieir astonisliment, met the enemy advancing on them 
by the road leading from their villages, and fled in every 
direction. Eight prisoners were, however, caj)tTired, and 
brought into camp. On being questioned, they confessed 
that they were after man-meat, and said that their tribe, 
which lived about a day's journey inland, eat old men and 
women and every stranger that fell into their hands. 

They now kept down the river for several miles unmo- 
lested, and at length heard the sullen ^roar of the sixth 
cataract rising orer the woods, and camped on the right 
bank, near an island covered with villages. Stanley knew 
what was before him, and ordered a stockade to be com- 
menced immediately. But, before it was finished, the 
everlasting drum and horn pealed through the woods, and 
soon the savages were upon them. After a short fight, 
they retreated, followed by Stanley's soldiers, to a large 
village, but there were only three or four old women in it, 
whom they brought into camp. In a short time a heavier 
force approached and made a furious attack, but were 
quickly driven back and two wounded men taken prisoners. 
A part of the force was all this time cutting a path around 
the cataract. The next morning they set to work with a 
wdll, and by noon had got safely around it. Stanley hav- 
ing wormed out of his captives all the information he could 
of the surrounding country and the various tribes that in- 
habit it set them free. Passing some rapids, they came to 
a village, in which there was but a single old man, solitary 
and alone, and who had been there for several days. The 
next day they halted to repair the boats. The persistent 
course of the river, till within the last few days, to the 
north, and sometimes north-east, had troubled Stanley, and 
but for the immense volume of water that he knew had no 
eastern outlet, would have shaken his faith in its being the 
Congo. But, since he past the last cataract he noticed that 



ONE INCESSANT FIGHT. 541 

It gradually deflected to the north-west, and now swept by 
almost due west, liaving evidently at last started on its 
marcli for the sea. Long islands still divided the river, 
making, most of the time, two streams and shutting out the 
opposite banks. Keeping down the right channel, they 
passed through enchanting scenery, undisturbed by war- 
drums and savage shouts. Though the water was smooth 
on their side, over the island, on the otlier, they could 
hear the roar of rapids, and a few miles farther down the 
loud roar of the seventh and last cataract of the " Stanley 
falls" burst on their ears, filling the solitude with its loud 
thunder. The river here was over a mile wide, and the 
fall of such an immense body of water over a high ledge 
made the earth fairly tremble. 

It was one incessant fight, either with the savages 
or with nature, and it seemed as if fate was determined 
to wear out these indomitable men. Soon the loud war- 
drums, and horns, and battle-shouts were mingled with 
the roar of the cataract, showing them that here, too, 
they must fight before they could get below it. Drop- 
ping down as near as it was safe to the commencement 
of the rapids, they pulled ashore and pitched their camp 
in a dense forest. Fearful of being attacked before they 
could intrench, they immediately set to work with their 
axes to throw together a brushwood fence, while thirty 
soldiers were stationed in front toward the river, to repel 
any assault. They had hardly got it comjoleted before 
the naked cannibals were upon them with a fury that 
threatened to break through their defenses. All this time 
out from the woods, adown the gorge through which the 
river plunged, war-drums and horns were heard summon- 
ing the thickly-scattered villages to the scene of combat. 
Before the steady fire of the musketeers the savages suf- 
fered 60 severely that at sunset they abandoned the attack 



542 • MYSTERIOUS DESERTION. 

and withdrew. Stanlej'- now secured his boats and strength- 
ened the brushwood fence, and laid his plans for the 
morning. 

The camp was roused at five o'clock, and they pushed 
on to a point nearer the falls, so that the work of carrying 
around them was completed before the Wangas were upon 
them. Everything being made secure here, they waited 
for the expected attack to begin, but, no enemy appearing, 
Stanley sent out scouts to ascertain what they were about. 
They brought back word that no savages were to be seen. 
On advancing to the villages, Stanley found to his astonish- 
ment that they were all deserted. Why or whither they 
had fled was a profound mystery. Here was a town or 
cluster of villages, each with four or live streets running 
tlirough it, and capable of containing two thousand inhab- 
itants, deserted in a single night. The silence of death 
reigned over it. 

Left thus at peace, he began to turn his attention to the 
falls. He found the river here in this terrific gorge was 
contracted to less than one-third of its breadth a short dis- 
tance above, and hence flowed with a power and strength 
that can hardly be conceived. Crowded together, the 
waters struggled and leaped, and tore onward with a wild- 
ness and fury like the Niagara River below the falls. He 
here found baskets tied to long poles set to catch fish. 
They emptied some of these, and found in them about 
thirty fish, of a different species from any known in our 
waters, showing that they had got among savages that did 
not wholly depend on human flesh for subsistence in the 
way of meat. They showed, also, in their villages and 
houses, and various implements and articles of household 
furniture, that they were in advance of the cannibals above 
them. At the same time, they seemed more alert, fearless 
and determined. 



I 



A NEW PEEIL MUSKETS 543 

The carry around these falls was not interruj)ted, and 
the immense labor of transporting so many boats and so 
much baggage along a rough-cut path was cheerfully 
performed. The next day, however, while congratulating 
themselves on the changed condition of things, they saw a 
large number of canoes approaching, and soon a musket- 
shot rang over the water, and one of Stanley's men fell. 
A new peril now threatened them — they found the natives 
armed with Portuguese muskets. Though it was a sure 
sign that they were approaching the coast, it showed, also, 
tliat hereafter it was to be fire-arms against fire-arms, not 
rifles against spears and arrows ; and if the natives con- 
tinued hostile, the destruction of the expedition seemed cer- 
tain with such odds against it. Heretofore in every combat 
the men picked up a number of native shields, almost as 
big as doors, which they preserved. In battle, the women 
and children would hold these before the soldiers, which 
w^as the chief reason why there had been so few casualties 
wlien fighting from the boats ; but if bullets hereafter were 
to be fired, these would be of no use. Still there was 
nothing left but to fight to the last. 

This changed condition of things caused Stanley the 
greatest anxiety. He, however, formed his boats in line of 
battle and the firing commenced — the natives after every 
discharge retiring to reload. Stanley's soldiers fired so 
rapidly, and with such deadly effect, that after an hour had 
past the natives withdrew, and the expedition moved off 
and was soon lost to si2:ht amid the innumerable islands 
that studded the river — each one loaded with the most 
luxuriant vegetation. 

The next day they floated down the river undisturbed — 
the islands growing thicker as it expanded, being now 
several miles wide. On one of them they saw an immense 

elephant standing amid the trees, but no one pro^^-osed to 

2.9 



544 A SHORT SPEECH. 

stop and kill him, though his huge tusks were a tempting 
sight ; there was too much at stake to think of hunting 
great crocodiles and hippopotami and other amphibious 
monsters, who make the channels around these islands 
their home. 

The next day, the 13th of February, they suddenly 
came upon a large number of villages. They were hidden 
from view, till they were so close upon them, it was too late 
to retreat. The next minute the forest resounded with 
the loud war-drums and ivory horns, while the fierce war- 
cries had changed their character and sounded like nothing 
human Stanley had ever heard. Bright gun-barrels 
gleamed above the light, graceful boats as they came 
swiftly on. But as they drew near the natives seemed to 
be filled with such strange wonder at the novel spectacle of 
two white men, that they did not fire, but sat and stared at 
them as if they had been ghosts. They followed them for 
five miles in dead silence, when one of them fired and 
killed an Arab. In an instant, the boats wheeled and 
opened such a rapid fire, that the savages retreated. But, 
when Stanley again resumed his downward course, they 
turned and followed after, hovering like hawks around 
him for five miles, but making no attack. 

They were now just above the equator, and were moving 
south-west. The next morning the islands were so thick 
that they shut out both banks, but keeping on down stream 
they at length came upon a village, and attempted to pass 
it unobserved, but the tap of a drum showed that they were 
observed, and their hearts sunk within them at the prospect 
of another fiijht. In a few minutes drum was answerins; 
drum in every direction, and soon the savages were seen 
manning their canoes. Stanley, seeing his men were worn 
down by this incessant fighting, made them a short speech, 
telling them if they must die it would be with their guns in 



DESPERATE ODDS. 547 

their hands. He had come to have great contempt for the 
natives on the water so long as they were without fire-arms. 
He could soon scatter them and keep them at a respectful 
distance with his rifles, but when it should be five hundred 
muskets against his forty guns, the whole character of the 
struggle would be changed. 

As they quietly floated down, canoe after canoe shot out 
into the river filled with gayly-decorated savages, till a 
whole fleet of them was in pursuit. Stanley ordered his 
men to cease paddling and wait their approach, determined, 
if possible, to make peace. But, while he was standing up 
holding out cloth and wire and making peaceful gestures, 
the crew of one canoe fired into his boat wounding three 
men. 

There was nothing left now to do but to fight, and soon 
th3 crash of fire-arms awoke the echoes of the forest-covered 
shjres. The men had raised their shields, and to their 
joy found them a perfect protection, as the enemy fired 
bits of iron and copper, that could not penetrate them any 
more than the native arrows. As the fight went on, other 
canoes arrived, until Stanley counted sixty-three canoes, 
which he estimated carried five guns apiece, which would 
make three hundred and fifteen to his forty-four — a desperate 
odds, and if they had been loaded with bullets, would have 
doubtless then and there ended the expedition. It is a 
little curious that whenever Stanley gets into a desperate 
strait that even his boldness and pluck cannot help him 
out of, some unforeseen thing comes to his aid, and he 
escapes. 

In this case, his rifles having so much longer range and 
greater penetrating force than these old-fashioned muskets, 
most of the enemy ke]3t at a distance of a hundred 
yards. One brave fellow, however, kept dashing up to 
within fifty yards, and firing, till he was wounded. It was 



548 NEARLY HALF-STARVED. 

a lucky thing for Stanley that their guns were poor, their 
cartridges feeble and their aim bad. At length the fire 
began to slacken, and dwindling down to now and then a 
random shot, before six o'clock ceased altogether. 

The fight being over, the men laid down their guns and 
once more took up their paddles and soon were out of sight 
of their enemies, and at sunset camped on an island that 
lay amid a nest of islets. 

The next day, the 15th, they continued their journey, and 
this and the 16th and 17th, were unmolested and allowed 
to enjoy the magnificent scenery amid which they floated ; 
but they had little inclination to admire scenery, for they 
were nearly half-starved, not having been able to purchase 
a jDarticle of food for a week. 

On the 19th they came to a great river, the largest 
tributary yet seen, and pouring an enormous volume of 
black water into the Livingstone. 

It now began to look as if, after having escaped death 
by battle and the cataracts, they were about to yield to 
famine. They met fishermen, but they would have noth- 
ing to do with them. On the 19th, nine days since they 
had been able to purchase any provisions, they came to 
Ikengo, where, to their great joy, they found friendly 
natives. The next day Stanley held a market on the 
island, where he had encamped, to which the neighboring 
chiefs came, as well as the villagers. Trade was brisk, 
and before night he had a bountiful suj)ply of sheep, 
goats, bananas, flour, sweet potatoes and various tropical 
fruits, for which he exchanged cloth, and beads, and wire. 
The men revelled in the unexpected abundance, and hope 
and joy again took the j)lace of gloom and discontent. 
The next day they resumed their apparently endless jour- 
ney, and floated peacefully amid green islands, scattered like 
gems over the broad bosom of the now friendly stream. 



FRIENDLY FISHERMEN. 549 

On the 23d, while floating quietly down, word was brought 
Stanley that the wife of one of the Arab chiefs, who had 
been sick for some time, was dying, and he pulled his 
boat alongside of the one in which she lay. She knew she 
was going, and bade him an affectionate good-bye. Soon 
after she expired. At sunset a weight was tied to her body, 
and she was dropped into the waters of the river, and left 
to sleep on its lonely bed, far away from the cocoa-nuts 
and mangoes of her native land. 

Their course now led them among beautiful islets, made 
gay by the rich plumage of tropical birds, occasionally 
meeting a few canoes, but no hostility was exhibited. 

On the 27th, they came upon natives fishing, who at 
once showed themselves to be friendly, and exhibited no 
distrust at all. It was a new revelation to the wanderers. 
Hitherto, after the most patient waiting and persevering 
efforts, could they gain the confidence of the savages if 
they secured it at all ; while here it was freely given, and 
they directed them to a good camping place, on an island 
from whence they looked across to the fields and villages 
of Chumbiri, where these fishermen belonged. The fisher- 
men then departed, to report to their king, who sent them 
back with presents of food, and a promise that he would 
visit the camp. True to his word, he appeared next day, 
escorted by five canoes filled with soldiers, carrying muskets. 
He wore a curious hat, was very cool and self-possessed in 
his manner, and inclined to be sociable. He took snuff in- 
cessantly, and in enormous quantities. After a long con-» 
versation, he invited them to make his village their home, 
and Stanley, wishing to learn all he could of the river 
below, accepted the invitation, and the expedition crossed 
the river, and was received in savage pomp. A grand 
market was held, and exchanges freely made. The women 
did not seem to be of the pure African blood, being brown 



550 A COMPLETE SURPRISE. 

instead of black, with large eyes, beautifully shaped 
shoulders, and altogether very pretty. They were very 
fond of ornaments, some of them wearing thirty pounds of 
brass wire around their necks. Stanley estimated that the 
forty wives, six daughters and the female slaves of the 
king carried on their necks about one thousand four hun- 
dred pounds of brass wire. 

He stayed here a week, enjoying the hospitality .of the 
king, who, to all his other kindness, gave him three canoes, 
as an escort, and on the 7th of March turned the prows of 
his boats again down stream. That night they encamj)ed 
in a jungle, into which two immense serpents crawled, one 
of which was killed just as he began to twine his folds 
about a woman. It measured thirteen feet and a half in 
length, and fifteen inches round the body. The next day 
passing tributary after tributary, they, on the 9th, went 
ashore to cook breakfast ; the women were busily engaged 
in preparing it, when they were startled by loud musket shots^ 
and six of the men fell. They were taken completely by 
surimse, but springing to their guns, they dashed into the 
woods, and a fierce fight followed, which lasted an hour. 
It was one incessant crack of musketry, each one shel- 
tering himself as best he could. The savages were finally 
driven off, but not until they had wounded fourteen of 
Stanley's men. This was the sharpest fight he had had 
yet, and if it was a prelude to what was to follow, the ex- 
pedition would soon consist of nothing but wounded men. 
It is astonishing, that in all these fights, of which this was 
the thirty-second, and last, neither Stanley nor Pocoke 
should receive a wound. 

After the wounded men had been attended to, they 
again set out and floated peaceably down, not suspecting 
any danger, when they approached a settlement which 
suddenly swarmed with excited armed men. Kowing 



Stanley's pool. . 551 

away as fast as possible, they soon got clear of the village, 
and encamped three miles below. The next day the 
voyage was charming, taking them through beautiful and 
ever-changing scenery. Nothing occurred to mar their 
pleasure the following day except a fierce south wind, which 
now began to set in regularly every day, making the river 
exceedingly rough for the canoes — especially at this point, 
where the river expanded to nearly two miles in width. 
This great breadth extended as far as the e3^e could reach, 
and, hemmed in by cliffs, resembled a pool, which young 
Pocoke christened " Stanley Pool." 

Paddling slowly down this pool, they passed several 
villages. Makoneh, the chief of one, proved very kind 
and hospitable, and offered to conduct Stanley to the next 
cataract. As they swejDt down, they halted at a friendly 
village, the chief of which inquired how they expected to 
get over the mighty falls below. He was a bluff, genial, 
good-souled negro, who seemed glad to assist them in any 
way in his power, and finally offered to guide them to the 
cataract. Moving down, soon its low roar was heard 
swelling over the forest, gradually increasing as they 
advanced, till it rose like a continuous thunder-peal from 
the solitude below. 

Makoneh led the way, and, just skirting the first line of 
breakers, landed on a pebbly beach. The village of Itsi 
was in sight, who was the petty king of a neighboring 
tribe. Some canoes soon crossed from it, and were received 
so kindly that the natives went back with such wonderful 
stories to their king, that next day he paid Stanley a visit. 
He came in a large canoe carrying eighty-six persons. It 
was over eighty-five feet long, and propelled by sixty 
paddlers. These, standing up and keeping time with their 
strokes to the steady beat of a drum, sent the boat like an 
arrow through the water, and made a stirring picture as 



552 THE BIG GOAT. 

they dashed up to Stanley's camp. There were several 
gray-headed men present, one of whom was introduced to 
Stanley as the king. The latter noticed that the rest 
laughed heartily at this, which afterwards turned out to be 
a practical joke. However, Stanley sat down with the 
venerable person in amicable conversation, while a young 
native and Frank seemed to strike up a warm friendship 
for each other, or at least the native for Pocoke, judging 
by the way he pressed presents on him. 

It seemed strange to Stanley that the young savage 
should give twice as much to Frank as the king gave to 
him, but it now came out that this young man was the 
king, and the aged man Stanley had been conversing with, 
one of his counselors. Stanley at once changed his attention, 
and asked him what present would please him. The royal 
young savage had been looking about at the various things 
in camp, and seeing a very large goat, told Stanley that he 
wished " big goat." Now this happened to be the last 
thing the latter wished to part with. A lady in England 
had requested him to bring back a goat of this very breed, and 
he had purchased several, of which this alone had survived 
the long and dangerous journey. He therefore endeavored 
to bribe the young king by doubling the other presents h^ 
had prepared. No, he would have the " big goat." Stan- 
ley then offered to give him an ass instead. At this the 
savage seemed to hesitate. The donkey was very desira- 
ble, but at this critical moment the animal sent up a huge 
bray, which so frightened the women, that he would not 
take him. Other tempting offers were made but nothing 
would do but the " big goat," and as Stanley was short of 
provisions (the men having squandered those the king of 
Chumbiri had given them), and these he must have, he 
reluctantly turned over the big goat, and the young king 
departed highly delighted. The next day he returned 



EXCHANGE OF CHARMS. 553 

bringing three ordinary goats in exchange and some pro- 
visions. Soon the kings or chiefs of other neighboring 
tribes came in bringing fruit, and all was harmonious, and 
treaties of amity were made with all. The one with Itsi 
was quite ceremonious. Among other things he gave 
Stanley a white powder as a charm against evil, in 
return for which, the latter, with all due gravity, pre- 
sented him with a half-ounce vial full of magnesia as the 
white man's charm. This and blood-brotherhood closed the 
formal proceedings of the treaty -making powers — quite as 
important, in their way, as similar councils in civilized 
countries. 

Stanley found by observation that though he had traveled 
from Nyangwe over one thousand two hundred miles, he 
had descended not quite a thousand feet 



CHAPTEE XXXVII. 



JEIBAL mFPERENCES— WHAT IS THE CAUSE OP THEM— THE CONGO TRIBES— THE CANNIBAl* 
LEFT BEHIND— CHANGE OF SCENERY— LIVINGSTONE FALLS— A WILD STRETCH OF WATER— CAR- 
RYING BOATS OVER LAND— EXHAUSTING, SLOW WORK— A CANOE LOST— STANLEY FALLS THIRTY 
FEET- ROCKY FALLS— A FEARFUL SIGHT— KALULU OVER THE FALLS— A CANOE SHOOTS THE 
KALULU FALLS IN SAFETY— A THIRD CANOE SHOOTS THE FALLS AND DISAPPEARS— SOUDl'S 
STRANGE STORY— MORE RAPIDS— DIFFICULTIES INCREASE— NARROW ESCAPE OF STANLEY— JOY 
AT HIS DELIVERANCE— FOUR CATARACTS IN SIGHT— STRANGE MUSIC— LESS THAN A MILE A DAY 
—THE BIG CATARACT— SCALING A MOUNTAIN ONE THOUSAND FEET HIGH— ASTONISHMENT OP 
THE NATIVES. 



IT is a little singular, that in this age of inquiry and 
persistent effort to get at the cause of things, no one 
has yet attempted to explain the reason of tribal differences. 
Aborigines occupying the 'same parallels of latitude and 
longitude, subject to the same influences of climate, living 
on the same diet, are different in color, features, and 
more than all, in disposition. The real, or supposed influ« 
ences, that lie at the bottom of the different races, do not 
a23ply here. Difference of origin, of climate, of food, all 
these must have great effect in changing color, features and 
character, and hence, to a certain extent, explain how such 
distinct nationalities exist, but not in the least account for 
tribal differences, where all these are the same, and 
where there are not even barriers of mountains and rivers 
separating them. Why should our western Indian tribes, 
roaming over the same prairies, living on the same food, 
and similar in all their mode of life, be yet so different in 
form, feature and disposition ? 

Is there really no way of getting a satisfactory, true ex- 
planation of all this ? 

So in Africa, Stanley crossed the continent in the same 

554 



TRIBAL DIFFERENCES. 555 

fjeneral range of latitude. The savages lie met were all 
Wellers of the equatorial region ; hence, lived in the same 
ilimate, using the same food, dressing in the same way, 
and living the same life, and yet as dissimilar as different 
nationalities. If any educational influences had been 
brought to bear upon them, one could understand this, but 
none have been exerted. These same tribal differences 
Stanley found on the Congo. Fierce cannibals and gentle 
-agricultural people were living side by side. Suspicious, 
faithless men, differing very little from the better class of 
monkeys, lived neighbors to tribes unsuspicious and 
trustful, and wonderfully advanced in the art of me- 
chanism. Here at the falls, which he named "Stanley 
Falls," the natives were suspicious, faithless, cruel, and 
now when he reaches the Livingstone Falls, he finds them 
hospitable, kind and trusting. When this difference bursts 
on him practically, he feels it sensibly, but j^hilosophically 
dismisses it with the simple remark, such "is the effect of 
trade." We cannot accept this as any exjDlanation at all, 
for there was no trade with the outside world, 'and they 
showed the same kindly natures before he commenced 
trading with them. 

The only evidence of their connection with civilized life 
was that they had muskets, and yet the very first tribe 
which possessed them was the most fierce, implacable and 
relentless, he met with. This ethnological question has 
never yet been settled. 

Still it is not singular that Stanley just then did not 
trouble himself with it. As long as the difference existed 
and was now in his favor he was content, as well lie might 
be. 

The friendly natives at the head of these falls assured 
him that he had passed the cannibal country, but they 
differed materially as to the number of falls below — one 



556 THE RAPIDS PASSED. 

making tliem three and another a half a dozen or more. 
No matter whether they were few or many, they had got 
to le passed, though he dragged his canoes over lofty 
mountains to do it. 

But if the change in the character of the natives was 
great, that in the character of the scenery and aspect of the 
river was no less so. The wild, fierce savages had become 
tame, while the gently flowing river, studded with green 
islands, had become wild and fierce and angry. The 
gradually descending plain was transformed into the 
terrific gorge, over which hung beetling cliffs, and the 
])lacid current into a roaring to];rent, dashing amid rocks 
and plunging over precipices, and filling the solitudes with 
an ever-angry voice. Hostile savages were behind, but 
hostile nature was before the adventurers, to whom there 
would be no rest till they found the restle&s sea. • 

Immediately before them were two stretches of rapids 
and then a cataract. The first was a meVe piece of broken 
water that was easily passed. Having no fear of hostile 
natives, Stanley leisurely explored both river and shore to 
ascertain the best way of getting around the second rapids. 
The goods, asses, women and children were taken overland,, 
while the boats were led with hawsers from rock to rock 
along the shore. Fortunately not a rope broke, and by 
five o'clock the rapids were passed and all were in camp 
together. 

The last, Stanley declared to be the wildest stretch of 
water he had ever seen. For four miles the river looked 
as if thrown upward by volcanic action beneath, and at the 
same time swept by a fierce hurricane above, and all the 
while dashing madly on at the rate of thirty miles an hour. 
Huge troughs would be formed, as if the stream was yawn- 
ing asunder, and then the divided water would come to- 
gether with a crash, sending up columns twenty feet high 



MORE UGLY RAPIDS. 557 

to dissolve in foam and spray. The crash of colliding 
waves and the steady roar of the rapids were awful. It 
was literally a " hell of waters.'' The land carriage around 
this wild stretch was a rough piece of work. Paths of 
brushwood were made, and the canoes slowly hauled up 
rocky heights and slid down into deep gullies — the women 
and children toiling after. They were nearly four days 
getting around this four miles of impassable rapids. The 
men were fainting for want of food, when smooth water 
was at last reached. This, however, continued but a short 
distance, when they had to take to land again, and haul 
their boats over a rocky point for three-quarters of a mile, 
which it took three days to accomplish. When it is re- 
membered that one of the canoes was eighty-five, and 
another seventy-five feet long and dug out of a solid tree, 
we can get some conception of the tremendous effort it 
required to transport them over rocks and hills. When 
smooth water was again reached, it gave them only a short 
respite. Stanley, however, found it necessary to halt and 
give the people rest, for the tremendous strain of the last 
week was telling fearfully on them. 

On the 25th they found themselves once more confronted 
by ugly rapids. In endeavoring to lead the boats around 
them, the best canoe was dragged by the mere force of the 
current from the hands of fifty men and whirled down the 
mad stream and dashed to pieces. Toiling amid the rocks 
several men got injured — one had his shoulder dislocated, 
while Stanley fell into a chasm thirty feet deep, but for- 
tunately struck on his feet, and thus escaped with some 
slight bruises, though he was very much stunned. On the 
27th they succeeded in getting past this " cauldron," as it 
was called, although they narrowly escaped losing their 
largest canoe. The next day was smooth water for only a 
ehort distance, when they came to " Kocky falls." These, 



658 A FATAI. JhlSTAKE. 

however, were passed with comparative ease, and two men 
sent forward to exj)lore. They reported, on their return, 
that about a mile below was another cataract, and that at 
its head was an excellent camp in a sandy bay. Stanley, 
therefore, determined to reach it before dark, and so man- 
ning his remaining seventeen canoes, he led the way, hug- 
ging the shore, so as not to get into the suction of the water 
above the falls. All were told to follow him, and by no 
means to venture out into the middle of the stream. Keep- 
ing close to the right bank, he felt his way carefully on- 
ward, and at last floated into the tranquil bay,* at the head 
of the fall. Three canoes followed him, and as he was 
waiting for the others to come in, he saw, to his horror, 
the largest canoe he had, in midstream, and coming 
down like a race-horse. Kalulu had charge of this, and 
deceived by the smooth, glassy surface of the stream, pulled 
out into midcurrent. The moment he was caught by it his 
doom and that of the four men with him was sealed. 
There was nothing to be done by those on shore but to 
watch the swiftly-gliding boat till it shot over the edge 
of the falls to disappear in the tumult below. Three of 
the men were Stanley's especial favorites, and he felt their 
loss keenly.. While his eye was yet resting on the spot 
where they had gone down, another canoe shot in sight, 
driving straight for the falls. Fortunately, they struck 
them at the least dangerous j)oint, and went over safely, 
then skillfully working the canoe toward the opposite 
shore, sprang overboard and swam to land. Stanley im- 
mediately dispatched his boat's crew up-stream to tell the 
rest to hug the shore, and in no case venture out into the 
stream. Before they reached the canoes, another one, with 
only the lad Soudi in it, shot by, who cried out, as he was 
borne swiftly onward, " There is but one God — I am lost, 
master," and next moment dropped out of sight. Strange 




nra 



A STRANGE STORY. 561 

to say, though the canoe was whi;rled about at the bottom 
like a spinning-to23, it did not sink, and was finally swept 
out of sight behind an island. The rest of the canoes 
arrived safely. 

The next day Stanley sent Frank back to bring over the 
goods to where he was encamped, while he traded with the 
natives, whom he found very friendly, and from whom he 
obtained abundant provisions. Resting here one day, they, 
on the 1st of April, got everything round the falls and 
encamped. In the afternoon, to the surprise and joy of all, 
young Soudi walked into camp. He had a strange story to 
tell. He was borne helplessly down the rapids, confused and 
dizzy, till at last the boat drifted against a rock, when he 
jumped out and got on shore. Before he had time to think 
where he was, he was seized from behind and pinioned, ,9nd 
borne to the top of a mountain by two men, who strij^ped and 
examined him with great curiosity. The next day several of 
the tribe came to see him, one of whom had been in Stanley's 
camp when King Itsi visited it, and he told them such terri- 
ble stories about Stanley and of his gun that could shoot 
all day, that they became frightened and took him back 
to the place where they had found him, and told him to 
speak well of them. The other two men had swam across 
the river, a mile below, and also joined the camp. 

Proceeding on down stream they came to more rapids, 
in passing wdiich there were many narrow escapes. It 
was a succession of rapids, and while Stanley carried the 
boats through them, Frank took the rest of the party and 
goods overland. The former examined every inch of the 
way carefully before starting. Thus day after day passed, 
always fighting the relentless river. Sometimes the water 
was too rough' to admit the passage of the boats, and then 
they had to be carried overland. It was slow and tedious 
work, and but little progress was made. The question each 



Im 



562 LADY ALICE RAPIDS. 

one kept asking himself was, how long will this last and 
when shall we see smooth water again ? 

Each day was but the repetition of the former, and if 
the natives had been as hostile as those farther up the river, 
they could not have got on at all. The only variation was 
when the river took some new whim or the formation of 
the country required more effort and new modes of getting 
on. Thus one day they undertook to lead the canoes by 
hawsers around a rocky j)oint, where the eddies set up 
stream with the strength and velocity of a torrent, so that 
it seemed impossible to get them down stream. To add to 
the difiiculty the cliffs, on the top of which the men with 
the hawsers stood, were fifty feet high, with their jagged 
edges, sawed the ropes till they parted one after an- 
other. 

So creeping along the shore to-day, and daring the mid- 
stream, though boisterous, yet clear of rocks, to-morrow, 
they kept on, hoping after the next stretch to reach a quiet 
flowing river. The Lady Alice fared hard in this perilous 
navigation, and once came near being lost. All this time 
the resources of the expedition were being exhausted, for 
though the natives were friendly, everything had to be 
paid for, and it was not difficult to answer the question 
" how long would their currency last ?" 

The next rapids they came to Stanley named the ^'Lady 
Alice Rapids," because we suppose both he and the boat 
escaped, almost by a miracle, sharing the same fate in the 
wild and mad waters of the Livingstone. The cables, 
lashed to bow and stern, to let the boat down, parted, or 
were snatched from the hands on shore, and away slie 
dashed down the foaming torrent. Above, the naked 
-cliffs rose three hundred feet high — around boiled and 
tossed the tumultuous waters, and certain destruction, 
seemed to await the man who had triumphed, over so many 



AN OUTBURST OF GRATITUDE. 56^ 

obstacles, and at last was nearing the goal of his ambition. 
The Arabs, whose life depended on his life, were in despair 
— tlieir master was gone — there was no one left to lead 
them out of this strange wilderness. Nothing but the 
coolness of Stanley saved him and his crew. Watching 
every change in the flow of the water — resigning himself 
to the wild will of the wild waters, when struggling was 
useless — taking advantage of every favorable change of 
the current, and bidding his men row for life at the right 
time, he at length reached shore, and at once sent messen- 
gers to his despairing camp to tell them he was safe. He 
knew, and they knew, that all thefr lives hung on his. He 
had had a narrow escape, and the natives on shore, as they 
watched his boat flung about like a cockle-shell in the 
boiling surge, looked upon him as lost. 

If Stanley wanted any new jDroof of the affection of his 
Arabs for him, he had it now. He had been only able, 
after his fierce struggle with the rapids, and being carried, 
in the meantime, over one fall, to reach land at last two 
miles below his camp, where he was looked upon as lost. 
When, therefore, the message was received from him that 
he was alive and safe, they streamed forth in one confused 
mass, and hastening down the river, came in a long, strag- 
gling line in sight of Stanley, waving their arms on high, 
shouting words of welcome and overwhelming him with 
their expressions of glad joy. This involuntary outburst 
of feeling and gratitude that their "master" was safe, was 
worth tenfold over all the suffering and peril he had en- 
dured. It is strange, when such momentous results hang 
on a single life, how we go on as though nothing depended 
upon it till the moment we are losing it comes. 

The men, women and children had joined in this grand 

exodus to congratulate Stanley on his deliverance from 

what appeared certain deatli^ and the men now returned 
30 



564 TKEMENDOUS CATARACTS. 

to bring up the goods to this point where the camp was 
pitched. Not twenty rods from it the Nikenke River 
came foaming, tumbling into the Livingstone from a preci- 
pice one thousand feet high, with a terrific roar and rum- 
ble. Almost as near, another tributary dashed over a ledge 
four hundred feet high, while just above was the wild 
rapids he had just passed, and just below another stretch 
of swift and tumbling water. The din of these surround- 
ing cataracts made a fearful, strange music in these myste- 
rious solitudes, and awakened strange feelings in Stanley, 
as he lay and listened and wondered what would come 
next. * 

The sharp crash of the near cataract tumbling from its 
height of a thousand feet, the low rumble of the lower fall 
and the deep boom of the mighty river made a grand 
diapason there in the wilds of Central Africa. West from 
the great lakes, the continent seemed to stretch in one vast 
plateau, across which the river moved in placid strength, 
its gently sweeping current, parted with beautiful islands, 
that filled the air with perfume exhaled from countless 
flowers and tropical plants, and making a scene of loveli- 
ness that intoxicated the senses. 

But all this was marred by the presence of blood-thirsty 
cannibals, whose war-drums and savage cries filled this 
world of beauty wath terrific sounds and nameless fears. 
But the moment the stream reached the edge of this plateau, 
where man seemed to become more human, it rolled into 
cataracts and rapids, down a steep incline, till it came to 
the sea. 

Canoes were upset and lost, and men barely saved from 
death, by expert swimming, during these fearful days, and 
yet Stanley could get no reliable information from the 
natives how far down this remorseless stretch of water 
extended. This terrible struggle, which the party under* 



THE SUMMIT REACHED. 565 

went, and the exhausting nature of their work may be 
faintly imagined when it is stated that for thirty-seven 
consecutive days they made less than a mile a day. It 
was a constant succession of rapids from the middle of 
March to the latter part of April. 

At length, on the 22d, they came to the " big cataract/' 
called by the natives Inkisi, which Stanley fondly believed 
would be the last. The table-land here is one thousand 
feet high, and the natives occupying it flocked into Stan- 
ley's camp, curious to know how he was to get his canoes 
past the falls. When he told them that he was going to 
drag them over that table-land one thousand feet high, 
they looked at him in speechless astonishment. His own 
men were thunderstruck when he announced to them his 
determination. But they had got so accustomed to believe 
that he could do anything he resolved to do, that they 
silently acquiesced. The natives, as they looked at the 
heavy canoes and then on the lofty height, with its steep, 
craggy ascent, took their departure and began to climb 
back to their homes to secure their property, for, they 
said, if the white man intended to fly his boats over the 
mountains, they did not know what terrible things might 
next happen. 

Having settled on the undertaking, Stanley immediately 
set to work to carry it out, and the first day built a road 
nearly a mile long. The next day the Lady Alice and a 
small canoe were resting on the high summit. The work 
was done so quietly and without any disastrous results to 
life and property, that the native chiefs were dumb with 
admiration and offered to bring six hundred men next day 
to help haul up the heavy canoes. They kept their word, 
and soon boats and baggage were in camp on the top of the 
mountain. Sending off a joarty ten miles ahead to prepare 
the natives for his coming, Stanley took the women and 



566 FAVORABLE EVIDENCES. 

children, and goods and boat's crew on to the next tribe to 
make a camp near the river, for the purpose of exploring 
the defile through which he was to work his way. 

He had found many articles of English make, and 
dishes, etc., among the natives, showing that he was ap- 
proaching the coast from which these must have been 
obtained. They had not, however, been brought there by 
traders, but had worked their way up from market to 
market along the river. It was encouraging, nevertheless, 
to the members of the expedition, who were getting worn 
out, while disease prevailed to a large extent and threatened 
to increase. Still they might be a great way off from the 
coast yet, in time if not in distance, if they continued to 
make but one mile a day. Hence Stanley had to be very 
economical in everything, especially in the use of meat — 
though the constant aAd terrible mental and physical 
strain on him made it necessary that he should have 
the most nourishing food. For lack of this in a simple 
form, he concocted a dish out of vegetables, fruit and oil, 
which proved a great success. 



CHAPTEE XXXVIII. 

LAST INSTRUCTIONS— A HAGNIFICENT FOREST— STANLEY THINKS OF DUG-OUTS AT HOME— RB- 
SOLVES TO BUILD CANOES— THE FIRST TREE FELLED— TWO CANOES FINISHED— THE BOATS ANIV 
EXPEDITION MOVING OVERLAND— ARABS STEALING — REDEEMING A CAPTIVE HELD FOR THEFT 
—CANOES OVER THE MOUNTAIN— REST— THIRD CANOE BUILT— DISPIRITING NEWS— NATIVK 
SUPERSTITION— A NARROW ESCAPE— LAUNCHING OF THE THIRD CANOE— RAINS— RISE OF THE 
RIVER- STORMS— THE EXPEDITION MOVES OVER THE MOUNTAIN— FRANK TAKES THE CANOES 
BY THE RIVER— MOWWA FALLS— A TERRIFIC SCENE— PASSING THE MOWWA FALLS— ULEDI 
CAUGHT IN THEFT— HIS SENTENCE— A TOUCHING SCENE— ATONEMENT— FORGIVENESS— CHRIS- 
TIAN PRINCIPLES IN HEATHENS— A STRANGE SUPERSTITION— THE NATIVES DEMAND THAT 
STANLEY'S NOTE-BOOK BE BURNED UP — A PAINFUL DILE^I.MA — A SUCCESSFUL STRATAGEM—" 
SHAKESPEARE BURNED— FRANK'S LAST NIGHT WITH STANLEY. 

IT was tlie 29th of April when Stanley gave his last 
instructions to his Arab chiefs about getting the canoes 
down the mountain to ISTzabi, the home of the next tribe 
west. On his way he entered a magnificent forest — the 
tall and shapely trees of which reminding him of his early 
wanderings in the wilds of Arkansas and on our western 
frontiers. It was not strange, while looking at them, that 
he should be reminded of the '' dug-outs" of the Indians 
which he had so often seen, and that the thought should 
occur to him to make some canoes, to take the place of 
those which he had lost in the passage of the rapids and 
falls above. It seems as if his early life had prepared him 
especially for all the contingencies that were to occur in his 
long and varied explorations in Africa. After thinking 
the matter over a short time, he resolved that the boats 
should be built, and having obtained permission of the 
* chief of the district, he at once commenced operations. 
The first tree selected was more than three feet in diameter 
and run sixty feet straight before it reached a limb. As 

567 



56^ PROPENSITY TO STEAL. 

soon as it was prone on the ground the men were set to 
work in sections upon it, and in a week had it finished. In 
a week more another was completed, measuring forty-five 
feet in length and eighteen inches deep. All this time the 
canoes were advancing over the land at the rate of a little 
more than a third of a mile a day, and finally reached 
camp the day before the second boat was finished. 

Things, however, had gone badly in the camp on the 
mountain-top after Stanley left, for the Arabs, following 
their apparently natural propensity, began to steal. One 
man, who had been caught in the act, was seized and made a 
prisoner by the natives, who resolved to keep him as a slave. 
Stanley spent an entire day negotiating for his redemption, 
and finally had to give one hundred and fifty dollars worth 
of cloth to get him released. It was plain that he could 
not afibrd to redeem many men at this price, and he dis- 
tinctly told them that if, after this, any of them were 
caught stealing, they would be left in the hands of the 
natives, to be held as slaves for life. A terrible punish- 
ment, yet, as it proved, not great enough to deter them 
from committing the same crime afterwards. 

The labor of the men engaged in hauling the canoes 
over the high mountain had been so great, that Stanley 
felt that some days of rest were demanded to recuperate 
them. But as idleness was always the fruitful source of all 
kinds of evil with the Arabs, 'he determined to keep the 
men who had hewed out the two boats still at work, and 
set them to making a third canoe. 

The chief of this district now informed Stanley, greatly 
to his surprise . and disappointment, that there were five 
falls immediately below him, while how many lay between 
these and the sea no one could tell. No matter ; he must 
still move on, and, for the present, cling to the river on 
account of the sick, if for nothing else. 



THE LIVINGSTONE LAUNCHED. 569 

On the 18th, he sent off a man to get some axes repaired 
by a native blacksmith. While the latter was engaged in 
the work, a spark flew from the anvil against the body of 
one of his children playing near by, burning him 
slightly. The enraged man asserted that the accident was 
owing to a wicked charm of the stranger, and, running 
out, beat the war-drum, at which the excited natives as- 
sembled in a great fury, and the poor Arab was in danger 
of immediate immolation, when the chief happened to 
arrive and saved him. 

On May 22d, the great teak canoe, the third which had 
been built, and which Stanley named Livingstone, was 
launched in the creek just above its entrance into the 
river, amid the shouts of the natives. It could carry 
forty-six people. As far as means of transportation was 
concerned, Stanley was now at ease — but would there ever 
•be a peaceful river on which these twelve canoes could 
float? 

It was now the 22d of May, and since the 24tli of Feb- 
ruary there had been forty rainy days, and hence for the 
month they had been working their slow, tedious way over 
the rid2:es and mountains, the river had been continuallv 
rising, and now. more than eleven feet above its usual 
height, was rolling in a grand, resistless flood through the 
gorges. Thunder and lightning had accompanied the 
storms, lighting up the wild river and drowning its fierce 
roar, and drenching the wanderers, till it seemed as if 
heaven itself was leagued with the natives and the cata- 
racts to drive them to despair and to destruction. The 
river was still rising, and the rush and roar of the w^aters 
were only less terrific than the deafening thunder-peals 
that shook the chasm in which they were confined. Still 
they must move on, even though it should be to greater 
horrors and more desperate conditions and a darker fate. 



570 SURVEYING A TERRIFIC SCENE. 

So on the 23cl of May tliey set out, and carrying around a 
short fall in the creek on the banks of which they had 
been encam23ing, and ascending a mountain, pushed sloTvly 
on for three miles over a plateau — the sick and suffering 
complaining bitterly, while the well were almost ready to 
give out and die then and there on the shores of the river. 
Every fall was expected to be the last, and yet proved the 
forerunner of a worse one to come. 

From this creek Stanley led the expedition — those that 
could walk — to the head of the Mowwa Falls. Frank, 
whose lame foot did not permit him to walk, took the Lady 
Alice, followed by the canoes, out of the mouth of the 
creek, to coast carefully along down the river to the same 
camping-j^lace. In the meantime, Stanley, who had arrived 
first, took a long and anxious survey of the terrific scene 
before him. At the head of the falls, where he stood on a 
grassy plot, a ledge of rock twelve feet high ran straight, 
across the river like a wall for a mile and a quarter and 
then stopped. From the end to the opposite shore it was 
a clear sj)ace of a little more than a quarter of a mile, 
through which the compressed river rushed with a strength 
and shout and fury that were appalling. This wall of rock, 
however, was not solid — here and there it was cut through 
as if by some mighty blow, making separate channels that 
had a fall of twelve feet. Below, as far as the eye could 
reach, treeless mountains arose nearly a mile into the 
heavens, while halfway up from the mad river, that tore 
with the sound of thunder along their bases, perpendicular 
cliffs stood walling in this awful embodiment of power. 

A scene of more utter desolation cannot be imagined 
than was here presented to his view in this solitary spot. 
The camp seemed a mere speck amid these gigantic out- 
lines of mountain and river. As he thus looked and lis- 
tened, awe-struck aud subdued, he saw Frank in the Lady 



A TRYING CASE. 571 

Alice coming through the rapids at a terrific pace. Tliis 
was the first time he had attempted such a feat, and he got 
confused and was finally thrown into the worst part of the 
rapids, and, in his frantic struggles to release himself, 
struck a rock and stove a hole into the boat six inches 
square. However, all were landed in safety, though Stan- 
ley mourned greatly over the severe injury to his boat, 
which thus far had escaped all harm. It took him a 
whole day to repair it. Two days after, the goods were 
transferred below and the boats dropped carefully through 
the ledge near the shore, where the water was less rough, 
and reached the camp below the great falls in safety. 

While resting here there occurred one of the most inter- 
esting scenes of this whole remarkable journey. In the 
transportation of goods over the mountains robberies had 
been committed of beads, etc., and now the last man in the 
whole party Stanley would wish to have accused of theft 
was found guilty — the noble, brave, reliable and kind 
Uledi. True as steel in the hour of danger, quiet, obedient, 
thinking nothing of his life if Stanley asked him to risk 
it, he had yet stolen — not things of ordinary value, but 
that on whi^ch their very existence might depend. Cloth 
was getting so plenty among the natives that its value was 
very much decreased, but beads were worth ten times their 
weight in gold, and these Uledi had stolen and hidden in 
his mat. Of course this must be stoj^ped at all hazards 
and at whatever sacrifice, still Stanley would almost as soon 
have Igst his hand as to leave Uledi, as he threatened he 
would the next man he found stealing, in the hands of the 
savages as a slave forever. He therefore called the chiefs 
together and made them a speech, in which he clearly 
showed them that their lives depended on putting a stop to 
theft, for if they were left without anything to buy pro- 
visions with, they all would inevitably perish of famine 



572 "beat him just a little. 



?> 



before they reached the sea, and asked them what should 
be done with Uledi, on whom stolen goods had been found. 
The principal chief would not answer for some time, but 
being urged to give his opinion said at last : It was very 
hard; seeing it was Uledi. Had it been anybody else he 
declared he would vote to pitch him into the river, but 
now he gave his vote for flogging. The rest of the chiefs 
concurred with him. Stanley then turned to the boat's 
crew, of which Uledi was coxswain, and by whom he was 
dearly loved. The principal one and the most relied on, 
the watchman of the boat, replied, "Ah, it is a hard ques- 
tion, master. He is like our elder brother; but, as the 
fathers of the people have spoke, be it so; yet, for our 
sakes, master, beat him just a littleJ^ He next accosted 
Zaidi, by whose side Uledi had clung all night in the 
midst of the cataract, and had saved his life by risking his 
own. He replied, " Remember it is Uledi, master." Next 
he addressed Uledi's brother, who cried "Spare Uledi, 
but, if he must be flogged, give me half of it, I shall not 
feel it if it is for Uledi." Last of all he asked the poor 
culprit's cousin, when he replied in a speech that the 
London Athenaeum, in quoting it, said would stand beside 
that of Jeanie Dean's, when pleading for her sister. The 
poor fellow asked, " Will the master give his slave liberty 
to speak?" "Yes," replied Stanley. He then came 
forward, and kneeling before him and clasping his feet 
with his hands, said : " The master is wise. All things 
that happen he writes in a book. Each day there i^ some- 
thing written. We black men know nothing, neither 
have we any memory. What we saw yesterday is to- 
day forgotten. Yet the master forgets nothing. Perhaps, 
if the master will look into his book, he may see some- 
thing in it about Uledi. How Uledi behaved on Lake 
Tanganika ; how he rescued Zaidi from the cataract ; how 



A TOUCHING APPEAL. 673 

he has saved many men, whose names I cannot remember, 
from the river — Bill Ali, Mabruki, Kom-kusi and others. 
How he worked harder on the canoe than any three men ; 
how he has been the first to listen to your voice always ; 
how he has been the father of the boat-boys. With 
Uledi, master, the boat-boys are good and ready, without 
him they are nothing. Uledi is Shumari's brother. If 
Uledi is bad, Shumari is good. Uledi is my cousin. If, 
as the chiefs say, Uledi should be punished, Shumari 
says he will take half of the punishment ; then give Say wa 
the other half, and set Uledi free. Saywa has spoken.'' 

All this was uttered in a low, humble tone, with his head 
bowed to Stanley's feet. Stanley could not resist such an 
appeal, and said: "Very well, Uledi, by the voice of 
the people, is condemned ; but as Shumari and Saywa 
have promised to take the punishment on themselves, 
Uledi is set free and Shumari and Saywa are par- 
doned." The moment the poor fellow was set free, he 
stepped forward and said : " Master, it was not Uledi who 
stole — it was the devil which entered into his heart." This 
touching scene is given, not merely for its pathos, but 
because these untutored natives, here in the wilds of Africa, 
illustrated the principles that lie at the very foundation of the 
Christian religion. First, they recognized the great funda- 
mental doctrine of atonement — of expiation — the suffering 
of the innocent in the j)lace of the guilty, by which the 
offender can be pardoned. In the second place, Uledi 
uttered over again the sentiments of Paul — When a man's 
whole nature revolts at the wrong he has done, and hates 
himself for it, it is not he that commits it, but " sin that 
dwelleth in him," when he would do good, evil was present 
with him. It was a happy termination of the affair, for 
it would have been a cruel act to have had the noble, true, 
unselfish and brave Uledi suffer the indignity of a whip. 



m 



574 AN UNEXPECTED DILEMMA. 

As in God's arrangement, forgiveness here was a severer 
condemnation of crime tlian punishment would have been. 

Another scene occurred, while in camp, that shows on 
what an insignificant, nay, ridiculous, thing the fate of 
a great expedition may turn. One day, Stanley being at 
leisure, took out his note-book and began to write, as was 
his custom when he had a few hours to himself. The na- 
tives, who flocked into camp in great numbers daily, noticed 
him and began to whisper among themselves. The crowd 
around him gradually increased and began to be strangely 
agitated, as the word "tara tara" passed from lip to lip, and 
presently, as if seized by a single impulse, they all ran 
away. Stanley merely observed the fact without stopping 
to think what the cause of this sudden abandonment of the 
camp might be. He therefore went on writing, when 
suddenly he was startled by loud war-cries ringing far and 
near over the mountain top, and, in two hours after, saw 
between live and six hundred natives fully armed rushing 
down the table-land toward the camp. He quickly mus- 
tered his men to be prepared for what seemed an unpro- 
voked attack, but determined, if possible, to avoid a collision. 
He therefore advanced toward them as they drew near, 
and, sitting down on the ground, in a friendly tone asked 
what it all meant and why they had come in such a war- 
like manner to their friends. A large savage, acting as 
sj)okesman, replied that they had seen him make marks on 
some "tara tara." Those black lines he had drawn on 
paper, he said, would bring sickness and death and utter 
ruin on the land, and the people, and animals, unless the 
book containing them was burnt up. 

Here was an unexpected dilemma. He must burn up 
that note-book or fight theSe five or six hundred armed, 
desperate savages. But that note-book, the gathered re- 
sults of nearly three years of exploration, was the most 



STANLEY PERPLEXED. 575 

precious thing on earth to him.. He was astounded and 
sorely perplexed at the strange demand — burn up that note- 
book ! He might as well burn u]3 himself. Even if he 
could remember his main adventures, he could not recall 
all the observations, j)lans of maps and routes, and statistics 
of every kind it contained, and, without which, the whole 
expedition was a failure. No, he could not give it up, but 
what then — fight one against four, all armed with muskets, 
to retain it ? Suppose he could put them to rout, it could 
not be done without a serious loss of life to himself as well 
as to them. But this was not the worst of it — with the 
natives friendly and aiding him as they had done and sup- 
plying him with provisions, it would be almost a miracle 
if he ever reached the sea-shore ; but with them hostile, 
even if he could fight his way through them, he would 
certainly perish from famine, for he could obtain no pro- 
visions, without which, he and the book would j)erich 
together. But, still, he could not give up that book, and 
he turned over in his mind every conceivable j^lan of 
averting the catastrophe. Finally, he told them to wait a 
moment, while, in the meantime, he stepjDcd back to his 
tent as if to fetch it. 

All at once it occurred to him that he might substitute 
another book for it, if, among his scant collection, he 
could find one at all resembling it. Turning them over, 
he came across a volume of Shakespeare of just about 
the same size. True the binding was different, but those 
savages knew as little of the peculiar binding of a book as 
they did of its contents. Besides, it lay open on Stanley^s 
knee when they saw it, and they observed only the black 
lines. However, the attemjDt to pass it off on these wild 
savages for the real book was worth making. So taking it 
in his hand, he walked back to where they stood with 
ferocious looks waiting for his determination, and handing 



676 POCOKE UNUSUALLY EXHILARATED. 

it to tliem, told them to take it. No, they would not touch 
it, he must burn it. Well, Stanley said, he would do any- 
thing to please such good friends as they were. So together 
they went to a camp-fire near by, and solemnly consigned 
poor Shakespeare to the flames. 

The natives were delighted at this evidence of Stanley's 
good-will, and became faster friends than ever. What he 
would have done had it come to the issue — ^burn that note- 
book or fight — he does not tell us. 

The river had been thoroughly explored for two miles 
below where they were encamped to the head of Zinga 
Falls. It was a rough, wild stretch of water, but it was 
thought it might be passed safely by using great caution 
and keeping out of the midstream rapids. At all events, 
Stanky had determined to try it first himself in his own 
boat — a resolution that nearly cost him his life. The next 
day, the 3d of June, the attempt was to be made, and 
Frank passed the evening in Stanley's tent in great spirits, 
talking and singing songs of merry old England. He was 
always singing, and most of the time religious songs which 
he had learned at home. The wilds of Africa had equal- 
ized these men, and they held sweet communion together 
this last night on the banks of the wild river. Frank 
seemed unusually exhilarated, little dreaming, alas, that 
the next night his lifeless body would be tossing amid the 
rocks tJiat lined the bed of the fierce torrent below — his 
merry songs all hushed — nevermore to while away the 
weary hours in this dreary solitude of Africa or brighten 
the life of his England home. 



CHAPTEE XXXIX. 

THE DEATH OF FRANK P0C0E:E. 

■LEVATED FROM THE PLACE OP SERVANT TO THAT OF FRIEND— PROPOSES TO TOSS rP TO DETER- 
MINE WHETHER THEY SHALL FOLLOW THE LUALABA TO THE SEA OR NOT— CHANCE DECIDES! 
THEY SHALL— POCOKE'S SHOES BECOME WORN OUT IN THE FOREST— IS MADE LAME— PASSAGE 
OF THEMOWWA FALLS— STANLEY'S PERIL— POCOKE'S FATAL SELF-WILL— HIS DEATH— THE SIGHT 
THAT STL'NNED STANLEY— A GLOOMY NIGHT FOR HIM— POCOKE'S CHARACTER. 

FKANK POCOKE, who, as stated previously, joined 
the expedition under Stanley as a servant, and whose 
brother had fallen at what proved to be the mere outset of 
the real main expedition, had, by his intelligence, geniality, 
ability and courage, and perhaps quite as much by the 
necessity of companionship that Stanley felt the need of in 
that wild region, and which only a white, civilized man 
could furnish, had risen above the position he had taken 
till Stanley looked upon him more as a friend than as a 
servant. This was natural ; he was the only man he could 
talk with in English ; the only man who had the taste and 
manners of civilized life ; the only one who in the long 
halt could in any way be his companion ; and, more than 
all, the only man who he knew positively would stand by 
him in the hour of danger to the last, and fall, if fell they 
must, side by side. Whoever else might prove false in 
these vast untrodden solitudes, Frank Pocoke, he well 
knew, would not be one of them. Under such circum- 
stances and conditions, Stanley would not have been the 
true man he is if he had not lifted the servant up to the 
place of friend, and he did. It was therefore but natural 

577 



578 A TOSS-UP FOR A LIFE. 

that in the long mental discussion at Ziangwe as to whether 
he should return or choose some other route than through 
the hostile tribes whose territory the waters of the Lualaba 
washed, or push on at all hazards by following its current 
to the sea, that he should take his quondam servant into 
his confidence and they should together talk over all the 
probabilities and possibilities of the different routes to be 
adopted. In another place we have shown what those 
difficulties were, and what the real or imaginable obstacles 
were that confronted Stanley if he determined to follow the 
Ivualaba at all hazards to the sea. 

In speaking of the death of young Pocoke, we wish to 
s.'how what influence he had at last in fixing the determi- 
nation that led to his own death and Stanley's fame as an 
explorer. One day, while Stanley was discussing with 
Pocoke the wisest course to pursue, the latter said : " Mr. 
Stanley, suppose we toss up, to determine whether we shall 
follow the Lualaba as far as the Lowra, and then strike off 
for Monbruto, or follow it to the sea ?" 

Stanley, who had become almost indifferent as to whether 
one course or the other would end his life, agreed, and a 
toss-up was made, and the result being on the side of fol- 
lowing the river to the sea, the drawing of straws was 
resorted to. Three trials of chances were made, and the 
decision of fate, as proposed by Pocoke, was to follow the 
river to the sea. He little thought that accidental toss was 
a toss-up for his own life, and that so trivial an affair settled 
his fate forever. We know what was Stanley's final de- 
cision, and though he does not acknowledge that this trial 
by chances had any effect on his final determination, the 
experience of human nature, since the world began, proves 
that it must have had. Even Napoleon, who believed that 
Providence was on the side of the strong battalions, had an 
equally strong belief in his " star." While it, doubtless, 



SHOES WEARING OUT. 579 

did have more or less influence on Stanley, it did not 
weaken his faith in the " strong battalions," which was, in 
his case, a wise provision, so far as he could make it, 
against all possible and probable contingencies. 

We have said thus much to show the real relations that 
Frank Pocoke at last sustained to the expedition. In the 
long and terrible march through the gloomy forest after 
leaving Zywague, and before finally launching on the 
Lualaba, to quit it no more till they reached the sea, or 
lay at rest forever on its solitary banks, Pocoke's shoes 
had become completely worn out. In traversing, half- 
barefoot, the tangled undergrowth, they had at last given 
out entirely, and the result was his feet became chafed, 
and at last, through constant irritation, caused by the 
necessity of hastening forward at all hazards, the abrasions 
that would have healed, could they have made a short halt, 
became ulcers, so that when they again struck the Lualaba 
he was unable to walk any farther, and Stanley said that if 
at any time they would have to leave the river and cany 
around rapids, Frank would have to be carried also. Stan- 
ley always led the way over the rapids and selected the 
paths for hauling around the canoes, while Pocoke super- 
intended the soldiers and distributed the rations, etc. But 
now he was placed on the sick-list. 

On the morning of the 3d of June, they came to the 

Mowwa Falls, around which they must carry, and the men 

shouldered the goods and baggage and started overland for 

Zinga, three miles distant, while Stanley attempted to run 

two small falls, named Massesse and Massassa, with the 

boat's crew. Hugging the shore for about three-quarters 

of a mile, they came at last to a lofty cliff, against which 

the tide threw the down-rushing stream back in such fury 

that great whirlpools were formed and they steered for the 

centre of the river and endeavored to stem the tide, but 
31 



580 PASSAGE OF MOWWA FALLS. 

failed. After fighting fiercely against the raging of whirl* 
pools, they tried again to advance in another direction, 
when Stanley discovered that his boat was fast filling with 
water, while the surface became still more terribly agitated 
at a point toward which he had been unconsciously drift- 
ing. The danger now became imminent. Shouting to the 
men to leave off bailing and pull for life for the shore, he 
threw off his coat, belt and shoes, to be in readiness to 
swim when the boat should capsize, as he exjDCcted it would. 
A wild whirlpool was near the boat and for a moment it 
seemed certain that it would drift into the vortex. But by 
a strong effort it was forced away and they pulled for 
shore. By the time they had reached it, the leaky boat 
was half-full of water. Finding it impossible to proceed 
in it he returned to Mowwa Falls, and after a short rest took 
a canoe and tried to proceed. But while he was talking 
with Pocoke, the crew had scattered, and as those who had 
gone to Zinga had not returned, "he determined to go over- 
land and look after the goods, and leave to his chief cap- 
tain, Manwa Sera, the supervision of the passage of the 
falls. He told him to first send forward a reserve canoe 
with short ropes fastened to the sides. "The crew," he said, 
" will pick their way carefully down the river until near the 
falls, then let the men judge for themselves whether they 
are able k) take the canoe farther. Above all things stick 
to the shore and do not play with the river." He then 
bade Pocoke good-bye, saying he would send him his 
breakfast immediately with hammock bearers, shook hands 
and turned to climb the mountain toward the camp. 

Sending back the breakfast as he had promised, he paid 
a visit to the kings of Zinga. Becoming anxious about 
the boats, as this was the first time he had ever permitted 
any one but himself to lead the way in any dangerous part 
of the river, he about three o'clock took his glass and going 



A WRECKED CANOE. 58S 

to the shore began to look up the river that came tearing 
out of the mountain like a wild animal and shaking the 
shores with its loud thunder. Suddenly he saw something 
black tossing amid the turbulent water. Scanning it 
closely, he saw it was an upturned canoe and to its sides 
several men were clinging. He instantly dispatched two 
chiefs and ten men to a bend toward which the wreck was 
drifting. The crew, however, knowing there was another 
cataract just below, attempted to right the boat and save 
themselves ; but, unable to do so, got on the keel and began 
to paddle for dear life with their hands toward the shore. 
As they got near the farther bank, he saw them jump of! 
the boat and swim for shore. They had hardly reached it 
when the overturned boat shot by Stanley like an arrow 
and with one fierce leap dashed over the brink of the cata- 
ract and disappeared in the foam and tumult below. In a 
few minutes a messenger arrived out of breath, saying that 
eleven men were in that canoe, only eight of whom were 
gaved — the other three being drowned, one of whom was 
Pocoke. Stanley turned fiercely on Uledi, his coxswain, 
and demanded how he came to let Pocoke, a lame man, go 
in the rescue canoe. " Ah, master," he replied, " we could 
not help it ; he would not wait. He said, * since the canoe 
is going to camp I will go too. I am hungry and cannot 
wait any longer. I cannot w^alk and I do not want you to 
carry me, that the natives may all laugh at me. No, I 
will go with you ;' and refusing to listen to Captain 
Manwa Sera, who remonstrated with him, he got in and 
told us to cast off. We found no trouble in forcing our 
way against the back current. We struck the down cur- 
rent, and when we were near the fall I steered her into 
the cove to take a good look at it first. When I had 
climbed over the rocks and stood over it, I saw that it was 
a bad place — that it was useless to expect any canoe to go 



684 DEATH OF POCOKE. 

over it without capsizing^ and I went to the little master 
and told him so. He would not believe me, but sent other 
men to report on it. They told the same story : that the 
fall could not be passed by shooting over it in a canoe. 
Then he said we were always afraid of a little water and 
that we were no men. * All right/ I said, ' if you say cast 
off I am ready. I am not afraid of any water, but if any- 
thing happens my master will be angry with me.' * Cast 
off/ the little master said, ' nothing will happen ; am I not 
here V You could not have counted ten, master, before we 
were all sorry. The cruel water caught us and tossed and 
whirled us about and shot us here and shot us there, and 
the noise was fearful. Suddenly the little master shouted 
'Lookout! take hold of the ropes!' and he was tearing 
his shirt off when the canoe, which was whirling round 
and round with its bow in the air, was dragged down, 
down, down, until I thought my chest would burst ; then 
we were shot out into daylight again and took some breath. 
The little master and two of the men were not to be seen, 
but soon I saw the little master with his face upward but 
insensible. I instantly struck out for him to save him, 
but we were both taken down again and the water seemed 
to be tearing my legs away ; but I would not give in ; I 
held my breath hard then and I came to the surface, but 
the little master was gone forever. This is my story, 
master." Stanley then examined the men separately, to 
ascertain if it were true and found it was. This man was 
brave but not foolhardy, and the best and most reliable in 
the whole party. 

Stanley very briefly expressed the sadness and loneliness 
of his feelings that night as he sat and looked on the 
empty tent of young Pocoke, but no language can express 
the utter desolation of his situation. His position, sur- 
roundings, prospects, all combined to spread a pall black as 



DESOLATE CONDITION OF STANLEY. 585 

midnight over his spirit and fill his heart with the gloomiest 
forebodings. Sitting alone in the heart of a country never 
before trod by the foot of a white man, on the banks of a 
mysterious river, on whose bosom he was to be borne he 
knew not where, the gloomy forest stretching away beyond 
him, the huts of strange natives behind him, the water in 
deep shadows rushing by, on whose foam and whirlpools 
his friend had gone down, and whose body then lay tossing 
amid the broken rock, the strangely silent tropical sky, 
brilliant with stars, bending over him, the thoughts of 
home and friends far away caused a sad and solemn gath- 
ering of emotions and feelings around his heart till they 
rushed over it like that rushing water, and made him in- 
conceivably sad there in the depths of the forest. With 
no one to talk to in his native tongue, no one to council 
with, without one friend on whom he could rely, left all 
alone to meet the unknown future, was to be left desolate 
indeed. Before, he knew there was one arm on which he 
always could lean, one stout, brave heart that would stand 
unflinchingly by his side in the deadliest peril, share all his 
dangers, and go cheerfully to the very gates of death with 
him. But now he was alone, with none but natives around 
him, with whom he must meet all the unknown dangers of 
the untrodden wilderness before him — perhaps be buried by 
them in the gloomy forest or left to be devoured by canni- 
bals. It was enough to daunt the bravest spirit, appall the 
stoutest heart, and that lonely night on the banks of the 
Lualaba will live in Stanley's memory forever. 

Stanley pronounced a high eulogium on his young friend, 
saying that he was a true African explorer — he seemed to 
like the dangers and even the sufferings of the expedition, 
so well did they harmonize with his adventurous spirit. 
Quick and resolute, he was always docile and in the heat 
and excitement * of battle would obey Stanley's slightest 



o36 Stanley's eulogium on pocoke. 

wish with alacrity. He seemed fitted for an explorer : on 
danger daunted him, no obstacle discouraged him, while 
his frame, though slight, was tough and sinewy, and he 
was capable of undergoing any amount of labor and could 
endure the heaviest strain. He had so endeared himself 
to Stanley that the latter said, in a letter to young Pocoke's 
parents, that his death took away all the joy and exulta- 
tion he should otherwise have felt in accomplishing the 
great task the two had undertaken together. 



CHAPTEE XL. 

ffANLEY MOURNING FOR HIS FRIEND— A IVrUTINY— SADNESS OP STANLEY— RETURN OF THB 
DESERTERS— BOATS CARRIED OVER A HILL— THE CHIEF CARPENTER CARRIED OVER THE FALL3 
— STANLEY RUNS THE MBELO FALLS — MIRACULOUS ESCAPE— FEELING OF HIS PEOPLE— THE 
END OF THE CHASM— ONE MILE AND A QUARTER A DAY FOR EIGHT MONTHS— THE ARABS 
STEAL, AND ARE MADE PRISONERS— ARABS LEFT IN SLAVERY FOR STEALING— FALLS OF ISIN- 
GILA REACHED — STANLEY RESOLVES TO LEAVE THE RIVER— THE LADY ALICE ABANDONED — 
THE MARCH FOR BOMA— ULEDI SLAPS A KING IN THE FACE— STANLEY SENDS A LETTER TO 
BOMA—THE MESSENGERS DEPART— HE MOVES ON— MEETS AN ENEMY WHO BECOMES A FRIEND 
— A GLAD SURPRISE— FOOD IN ABUNDANCE— LUXURIES FOR STANLEY— A SONG OF TRIUMPH— 
STANLEY'S FEELINGS, AS SHOWN BY HIS LETTER— REACH BOMA— THE REACTION- STANLEY 
OFFERED A STEAMER HOME— PREFERS TO STAND BY HIS ARABS- RECEPTION AT CAPE TOWN- 
ZANZIBAR REACHED— JOY OF THE ARABS— AN AFFECTING SCENE— FAREWELL TO STANLEY. 

THE next morning Stanley arose with a sad and heavy 
heart ; the cruel, relentless river seemed more re- 
morseless than ever, and its waves flowed on with an 
angrier voice, and that seemed full of hate and defiance. 

Eighty men were still behind, at Mowwa, and the next 
day word reached Stanley that they had mutinied, declar- 
ing they would follow the river no longer, for death was in 
it. He, borne down with his great loss, paid no attention 
to the report, and stayed and mourned for his friend for 
three days before he set out for Mowwa. He found the men 
sullen, sad and reckless. It would be strange, however, if 
he could not regain his old influence, which, after much 
effort, he did. But he did not get all down to Zinga till 
after four days. Meantime Frank's body had been found 
floating, face upward, some distance below the falls. All 
the canoes did not reach Zinga till the 19th, more than a 
fortnight after Frank's death. 

On June 20th Stanley began to make preparations to 
continue on down the river. There had been dreadful 

587 



588 REBELLION. 

hard work in passing and getting round the falls where 
Frank lost his life, but the worst of it was, when they had 
succeeded, they seemed to have just begun their labors, foi 
now it had all got to be repeated over again. The men 
had lost all spirit and did not seem to care what became of 
them ; and so, when on the 20th, Stanley ordered the men 
to their work to lay brushwood along the tracks marked 
out for hauling the canoes from the Pocoke basin around 
Zinga point into the basin beyond, the men seemed disin- 
clined to move. Stanley, in surprise, asked what was the 
matter. " We are tired of this," growled a burly fellow^ 
" and that's what's the matter." 

Stanley soon discovered that he was not alone in his 
opinion, and, though once he would have quelled this 
spirit of rebellion with prompt, determined action, he did 
not feel like using harsh measures now, or even harsh 
language. He knew he had tasked them to the uttermost 
— that they had followed his bidding unquestioned, as far 
as he ought to ask them, and so he called them together to 
talk with them and give them an opportunity to tell 
frankly their grievances. But there was nothing to say, 
except they had gone far enough, and did not mean to 
make another effort. Death and famine awaited them, and 
they might as well give up first as last. Stanley did not 
attempt even to appeal to them, except indirectly. He 
simply told them that he, too, was hungry, and could have 
had meat, but saved it for them. He, too, was weary and 
sad. They might leave him if they choose — he had his 
boat still, and if he was left alone, he had but to step into 
it — the falls were near, and he would soon be at rest with 
his friend. It is most pitiful and sad to see how the in- 
domitable will of this strong man has given way. The 
bold and confident manner with which he set out from 
Kyangwe — the healthy, cheery tone in which he addressed 



WEARY OF LIFE. 589 

them when bowed down with grief at the farewell song of 
Tipo-tipo's Arabs are gone, and in their place has come a 
great weariness and despair. To see such a strong man 
forced at last to yield, awakens our deepest sympathy. No 
wonder he was weary of life, and longed to die. Under 
the terrible mental and physical strain of the last six 
months the toughest nature must give way, while to this was 
added the feebleness that comes from want of food and the 
utterly dreary, hopeless prospect before him. As he stood 
amid his dusky followers, his once sinewy frame looked 
lean and languid, and his voice had a weary, despairing 
tone. The star of fame that had led him on was gone 
down, and life itself had lost all its brightness, and when 
he had done speaking he turned away indifferent as to the 
future. The men listened, but their hungry, despairing 
hearts felt no sympathy. They, too, had reached the 
point of indifference as to the future, except they would no 
longer cling to that cruel river, and thirty-one packed 
their baggage and filed away up the ascent and were soon 
lost to view. When it was told to Stanley, he inquired 
how many had gone. Learning that only thirty-one had 
left, and that the rest would stand by him to the last, lie 
roused himself, and unwilling that the faithful should perish 
through the disaffection of a few men, he sent messengers 
after the deserters to plead with them to come back. They 
overtook them five miles away and urged them to return, 
but in vain. Setting the faithful to work, he dispatched 
two men to cut off the fugitives, and tell the chiefs not to 
let them pass through their territory. They obeyed, and 
beat the war- drum, which so terrified the wanderers that 
they were glad to return. It would seem strange that men 
who had been accustomed to obey him implicitly for nearly 
three years, and had stood by him so staunchly in many a 
fight and through countless perils, could so easily desert 



590 THE LIVINGSTONE LOST. 

Him now. But clesj^air will make even a wise man mad, 
and these poor creatures had got into that hopeless condi- 
tion which makes all men reckless. Starting off with no 
definite aim in view, no j)oint to travel toward, shows how 
desperate they had become. No wonder they saw no hope 
in clinging to the river, for they had now been over a month 
going three miles, and it seemed worse than useless to 
attempt to push on farther in that direction. 

On the 23d of June, the work was commenced of hauling 
out the canoes to take them over a hill two hundred feet 
high, and by noon three were safely on the summit. Next 
came the Livingstone, which had been recently made. It 
weighed some three tons, yet, with the aid of a hundred 
and fifty natives, they had succeeded in getting it twenty 
feet up the bank, when the cables parted and it shot swiftly 
"back into the river. The chief carpenter clung to it, and, 
being carried beyond his depth, climbed into it. He was 
only a short distance above the falls, and the brave Uledi, 
seeing his peril, plunged into the river, and, swimming to 
the boat, called out to him to leap overboard instantly. 
The poor wretch replied that he could not swim. "Jump," 
shouted Uledi, "you are drifting toward the cataract." 
The terrified creature, as he cowered in the canoe, faltered 
out, " I am afraid to." " Well, then," said Uledi, " you 
are lost — brother, good-bye," and struck out with all his 
might for the shore. A minute's longer delay, and he, 
too, would have been lost, for, though a strong swimmer, 
he was able, only by the most desperate effort, to reach 
shore less than sixty feet from the brink of the falls. The 
next minute the canoe was shooting over them into the 
boiling cauldron below. Tossed up and down and whirled 
about, it finally went down and was seen no more. 

The next day, the other boats were got up, and then the) 
process of letting them down was commenced. This was 



SAFELY OVEK. 593 

done in safety, when the goods were sent overland to the 
Mbelo Falls beyond, while the boats should attempt to run 
the rapids. There was no abrupt descent, but a wild waste 
of tumbling, roaring water dashing against the cliffs and 
rocks in reckless fury. Stanley resolved to try them first, 
before risking his men, and embarked in the Lady Alice, 
and, with men on shore holding cables attached to the bow 
and stern, drifted slowly downward amid the rocks. The 
little boat seemed a mere toy amid the awful scenery in 
which it floated, and Stanley felt, as it rocked beneath him, 
what a helpless thing it would be in the wild and turbulent 
midstream. But just as he had reached the most dangerous 
point, one of the cables parted. The boat swung to, when 
the other snap23ed asunder and the frightened thing w^as 
borne like a bubble into the boiling surge and carried 
downward like an arrow. Down, down, between the 
frowning jDrecij^ices, now barely escaping a huge rock, and 
now lifted like a feather on the top of a wave, it swept on, 
apparently, to certain destruction. But death had lost all 
its terrors to these hard-hunted men, and the six in the 
boat sat resigned to their fate. The brave Uledi, however, 
kept his hand on the helm and his steady eye on the hell 
of waters around and before them. Sometimes caught in 
a whirlpool that whirled them around and around, and 
then springing like a panther down a steep incline, the 
boat continued to plunge on its mad course with death on 
every side, until at last it shot into the Niguru basin, when 
they rowed to the sandy beach of Kilanga. Here, amid 
the rocks, they found the broken boat in which Pocoke 
went down, and the body of one of the men who was 
drowned with him jammed among the fragments. 

Stanley looked back on this perilous ride with strange 
feelings. It seemed as if fate, while trying him to the 
utmost, was determined he should not perish, but fulfill 



594 "it is the hand of god." 

the great mission he had undertaken. His people seemed 
to think so, too, for when they saw his boat break adrift 
3.nd launch into the boiling rapids, they gave him up for 
lost ; but when they caught sight of him coming toward 
them alive and well, they gave way to extravagant joy and 
exclaimed, " it is the hand of God — we shall reach the sea." 
The escape was so wonderful, almost miraculous, that they 
could not but believe that God had spared him to save 
them all. 

They now pushed on with little trouble to Mpakambendi, 
the terminus of the chasm, ninety-three miles long, in 
which they had been struggling a hundred and seventeen 
days. This simple statement conveys very little to the 
ear, yet what fearful shapes does it conjure up to the 
imagination ! Ninety-three miles of rapids and cataracts, 
with only here and there a stretch of smooth water ! A 
mile and a quarter a day was all the progress they had 
made now for nearly four months. No wonder the poor 
Arabs gave up in despair and refused any longer to follow 
the river. 

Although below the chasm the stream did not flow with 
that placidity it did through the cannibal region, still, it 
did not present any dangerous rapids, and they glided on 
toward the sea with new hopes. 

The natives along the banks were friendly, though difii- 
culties were constantly arising from the theiving propen- 
sities of the Arabs. Two were seized by the natives, and 
Stanley had nearly to bankrupt himself to redeem thcm„ 
on which he gave the men a talk and told them plainly 
that this was positively the last time he would redeem a 
single prisoner seized for theft, nor would he resort to 
force to rescue him. 

It was now the 7th day of July, and although hope had 
revived in the hearts of the people, some of the sick felt 



PROVISIONS SCARCE. 595 

that they should never see their native island again. Two 
died this day and were buried on the banks of the river 
whose course they had followed so long. They now had 
clear, though not smooth, sailing for some nine or ten 
miles, when they came to another fall. This was passed 
in safety, with the assistance of the natives, who assembled 
in great numbers and volunteered their services, for which 
they were liberally rewarded. More or less broken water 
was experienced, but not bad enough to arrest the progress of 
the boats. Provisions were getting scarce, and consequently 
the thieving propensity of the Arabs to obtain them mora 
actively exhibited itself, and one man, caught while digging 
up roots in a garden, was held as a prisoner. The men 
asked his release, but Stanley, finding that the price which 
the natives asked for his redemption was far greater than 
his means to pay, would not interfere, and he was left to 
live and die in perpetual slavery. But this did not stop 
thieving, and soon another man was caught in the act and 
made prisoner. This case was submitted to the chiefs, and 
their decision was to let him remain in slavery. But the 
men were starving, and even this terrible exhibition of the 
doom that awaited them, was not sufiicient to deter the men 
from stealing food. The demands of the stomach overrode 
all fears of punishment, and three or four days after 
another man was detected and made a prisoner. He, too^ 
was left to live and die a slave in the haaids of the natives. 
Dangerous rapids were now and then encountered, but 
they were passed without accident, and Stanley at last 
found that he was close to the sea. He announced the 
fact to his people, who were intensely excited at the news. 
One man, a boatman, went crazy over it, and, shouting 
" we have reached the sea, we are at home," rushed into 
the woods and was never seen again. The poor wretch, 
probably, lay down at last in the forest, with the groves of 



596 THE LADY ALICE ABANDONED. 

Zanzibar, in imagination, just ahead of him. Sweeping 
downward, frequent rapids occurred, but the expedition 
kept on until it reached the district of Kilolo. 

Stanley here lay down weary ^nd hungry, but was 
aroused by musket-shots. His people, starving and des- 
jDcrate, had scattered about, entering every garden they saw 
to get something to eat, and the natives had attacked 
them. Soon wounded men were brought in, whom the 
natives had shot. Several had been captured whom Stan- 
ley refused to redeem, and they were left to pine in endless 
captivity, never again to see the hills of Zanzibar, as he 
over and over again had promised they should. 

Changing from bank to bank, as the character of the 
river changed, the expedition, on the 30th of July, heard 
in advance the roar of the cataract of Isingila. Here 
Stanley ascertained that they were but five days' journey 
from Embomma, a distance always traveled by land by 
the natives, on account of the obstructions in the river. 

As the whole object of the expedition had been accom- 
plished, and the short distance b'eyond these falls to the sea 
was known to Europeans, he resolved to leave the river 
and march by land to Embommav At sunset the Lady 
Alice was drawn out of the water to the top of some rocks 
and abandoned forever. To Stanley it was like leaving a 
friend behind. The boat had been his companion for 
nearly three years. It had carried him over the waters of 
the lakes, dashed at his bidding among hostile canoes, 
rocked him to sleep, amid the storms, borne him all safely 
over foaming cataracts, and now it must be left ignobly to 
rot in the wilds of Africa. As he turned to cast a last fare- 
well glance on it resting mournfully on the rocks, the poor 
boat had almost a human look, as if it knew it was to be 
left behind and abandoned forever. 

On the 1st of August, the famished, weary column took 



NSANDA REACHED. 597 

lip its line of march toward the sea — the mothers carrying 
infants, that had been born amid the cataracts, and the 
larger children trudging slowly after. Nearly forty of the 
one hundred and fifteen were sick, and though it was painful 
to travel, they were cheered by the promise that in four or 
five days they should once more look on the sea, toward 
which their longing hearts had been turned for so many 
weary months. Coming to a village, the king stopped them 
and told them they could not pass without they gave him a 
bottle of rum. Uledi, hastening up, asked Stanley what 
the old man wanted. " Rum,'' he replied. Hitting him 
a severe slap in the face, " there is rum for him," growled 
Uledi, as the drunken negro tumbled over. The latter 
picked himself up and hurried away, and Stanley and his 
worn and wasted band passed on without further molestation. 

It was hard to get food, for one party would demand 
rum and refused to furnish it without, another wanted 
them to wait till the next market-day. 

On the third day they reached Nsanda, the king of 
which told Stanley it was but three days' march to the 
sea. The latter asked him if he would carry a letter to 
Embomma for him. He replied no, but after four hours 
of hard urging he agreed to furnish guides for three of 
Stanley's men. 

The next day they set out, carrying the following letter: — 

Village Nsanda, August 4th, 1877. 
To any gentleman who speaks English at Embomma, 

Dear Sir: I have arrived at this place from Zanzibar with 
one hundred and fifteen souls, men,' women and children. 
"We are now in a state of imminent starvation. We can 
buy nothing from the natives, for they laugh at our kinds of 
cloth, beads and wire. There are no provisions in the 
country that may be purchased except on market-days, and 



51>8 APPEAL FOE HELP. 

starving people cannot aiford to wait for these markets. I 
therefore liave made bold to dispatch three of my young 
men, natives of Zanzibar, with a boy named ^Robert Ferugi 
of the English mission at Zanzibar, with this letter, craving 
relief from you. I do not know you, but I am told there 
is an Englishman at Embomma, and as you are a Christian 
and a gentlemen, I beg of you not to disregard my request. 
The boy Eobert will be better able to describe our condition 
than I can tell you in a letter. We are in a state of the 
greatest distress, but, if your supplies arrive in time, I may 
be able to reach Embomma in four days. I want three 
hundred cloths, each four yards long, of such quality as you 
trade with, which is very different from that we have; but 
better than all would be ten or fifteen man-loads of rice or 
grain to fill their pinched bellies immediately, as, even 
with the cloths it would require time to purchase food, and 
starving men cannot wait. The supplies must arrive within 
two days, or I may have a fearful time of it among the 
dying. Of course I hold myself responsible for any ex- 
pense you may incur in this business. What is wanted is 
immediate relief, and I pray you to use your utmost ener- 
gies to forward it at once. For myself, if you have such 
little luxuries as tea, coffee, sugar and biscuits by you, such 
as one man can easily carry, I beg you, on my own behalf, 
that you will send a small supply, and add to the great debt 
of gratitude due to you upon the timely arrival of supplies 
for my people. Until that time, I beg you to believe me, 

Yours, sincerely, 

H. M. Stanley, 
Commanding Anglo-Ameo^ican Expedition, 

for Exploration of Africa, 

P. S. — You may not know my name ; I therefore add, 
I am the person that discovered Livingstone. 

H. M. S 



ULEDI READY. 599 

After writing this letter, Stanley called liis chiefs and 
boat's crew to his tent and told them of his purpose to send 
a letter to Embomma for relief, and wanted to know which 
were the most reliable men — would travel fastest and least 
likely to be arrested or turned back by obstacles. The 
ever-ready Uledi sprang to his feet and exclaimed, as he 
tightened his belt, " O master, I am ready now !" The 
other volunteers resj)onded as quickly, and the next day, 
the guides appearing, they started off. In the meantime, 
the expedition resumed its slow march, having eaten 
nothing but a few nuts to stay their stomachs. Coming 
to a village, the chief demanded payment for j^assing 
through his country, and armed his followers; but on 
Stanley threatening to destroy every man in th-*^ place, his 
rage subsided, he shook hands, and peace was made and 
sealed by a drink of 23alm wine and the promise of a bottle 
of rum. 

In the meanwhile, Uledi and his companions pressed 
swiftly on, but when about halfway, the guides, K^ccming 
frightened, deserted them. Unable to obtain others, they 
resolved to follow the Congo. All day long they pressed, 
steadily forward, and, just after sunset, reached Bom a, to 
which Embomma had been changed, and delivered the 
letter. The poor fellows had not tasted food for thirty 
hours, and were well-nioii famished. Thev soon had 
abundance, and the next morning (August Gth), while 
Stanley was leading on his bloated, haggard, half-starved, 
staggering men, women and children, Uledi started back 
with carriers loaded down with provisions. 

At nine o'clock, the expedition had to stop and rest. 
While they lay scattered about on the green sward, sud- 
denly an Arab boy shouted, " I see Uledi coming down 
the hill !" and sure enough there were Uledi and Kacheche 

leaping down the slope and waving their arms in the air. 
32 



600 WE AKE SAVED. 

" La il Allah, il Allah !" went up in one wild shout — " we 
are saved, thank God!" Uledi had- brought a letter to 
Stanley, who had scarcely finished reading it when the 
carriers appeared in sight laden with provisions. The 
sick and lame struggled to their feet, and, with the others, 
pressed around them. While Stanley was distributing 
them, one of the boat-boys struck up a triumphant song, 
that echoed far over the plain. They then set to and ate 
as only starving men can eat. 

When all were supplied, Stanley turned to his tent, to 
open the private packages sent to him. Heavens ! what a 
spectacle met his astonished sight ! A few hours before, 
he had made his breakfast on a few green bananas and 
peanuts, washed with a cup of muddy water, and now 
before him were piled champagne, port and sherry wines, 
and ale, and bread, and butter, and tea, and sugar, and 
plum-pudding, and various kinds of jam— in short, enough 
luxuries to supply half a regiment. How Stanley felt that 
night as he looked on his happy, contented followers, may 
be gathered from the following extract from a letter he 
sent back next day to his kind-hearted deliverers. After 
acknowledging the reception of the bountiful sup23lies, he 
says : 

"Dear Sirs — though strangers I feel we shall be great 
friends, and it will be the study of my lifetime to remember 
my feelings of gratefulness when I first caught sight of 
your supplies, and my poor faithful and brave people cried 
out, ^ Master, we are saved — food is coming V The old and 
the young men, the women and the children lifted their 
wearied and worn-out frames and began lustily to chant an 
extemporaneous song in honor of the white people by the 
great salt sea (the Atlantic), who had listened to their 
prayers. I had to rush to my tent to hide the tears that 
would come, despite all my attempts at composure. 



A GREAT REACTIOIT. 601 

" Gentlemen, that tlie blessing of God may attend your 
footsteps, whithersoever you go, is the very earnest prayer 
of 

"Yours faith fullv, 

\ "Henry M. Stanley." 

That day was given up to feasting and rejoicing, and the 
next morning— a very different looking set of men — they 
started forward. All this and the next day they, marched 
cheerfully over the rolling country, and on the third, while 
slowly descending a hill, they saw a string of hammocks 
approaching, and soon Stanley stood face to face with four 
white men, and so long had he been shut up in a country 
of blacks that they impressed him strangely. After some 
time spent in conversation they insisted on his getting into 
a hammock, and borne by eight stout bearers he was car- 
ried into Boma, where rest and abundance awaited him. 
He stayed in this little village of a hundred huts only one 
day and then embarked on a steamer for the mouth of the 
river, a hundred or more miles away. Turning northward 
he reached Kabinda, where one of the expedition died. 
The reaction on these poor creatures after their long and 
desperate struggle was great, and they fell back into a sort 
of stupor. Stanley himself felt its influence and would fall 
asleep while eating. The sense of responsibility, however, 
roused him and he attempted in turn to arouse his men. 
But, notwithstanding all his efforts, four died of this malady 
without a name after he reached Loanda, and three more 
afterwards on board the vessel that carried them to Cape 
Town. 

Stanley gave his poor followers eight days' rest at Ka- 
binda and then in a Portuguese vessel proceeded to Loanda. 
Here the governor-general offered to send him in a gun- 
boat to Lisbon. This generous offer was very tempting, 



602 AT CAPE TOWN. 

and many would have accepted it, but Stanley would not 
leave his Arab friends who had shared his toils and hard- 
ships, and shown an unbounded trust in his j^romise to see 
them back to Zanzibar. A passage being offered them in 
the British shi]:) Industry, to Cape Town, Stanley accepted 
it and, instead of going home where comfort and fame 
awaited him, turned southward with his Arab followers. 
At Cape Town he was received with every mark of distinc- 
tion, and delivered a lecture there giving a brief account of 
the expedition, especially that part of it relating to the 
Congo. A British vessel here was jDlaced at his clisj)Osal, 
and while she was refitting Stanley gave his astonished 
Arabs a ride on a railroad, on which they were whirled 
along at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Of all the won- 
ders they had seen since they left Zanzibar, nearly three 
years before, this was the greatest. Entertainments were 
got up for them, suitable garments for that cold latitude 
provided, till these poor, simple children of nature were 
made dizzy by the attentions they received. Among other 
things a special evening was set a23art for them in the 
theatre, and they were thrown into raj)tures at the per- 
formance of the acrobats and made the building ring with 
their wild Arab shouts of approval. 

At length, on the 6th of November, nearly two months 
from the time they reached the Atlantic coast, they set sail 
for Zanzibar. Stopping for two days at Natal to coal, 
where every possible attention was lavished on them, they 
again put to sea and stretched northward through the 
Indian Ocean. 

Day after day these now contented people lay around on 
deck, drinking in health from the salt sea air. All but 
one was shaking off every form of disease contracted in 
their long wanderings. This was a woman who was 
slowly dying, and who was kept alive alone by the thought 



THE GREAT JOURNEY ENDED. , 603 

of seeing her home once more. At last the hills of Zanzi- 
bar arose over the sea, and as these untutored Arabs traced 
their well-known outline, their joy was unbounded, and 
Stanley felt repaid for the self-denial that had refused a 
passage home from Loanda and to stick by his faithful 
followers to the last. Their excitement increased as the. 
caves and inlets grew more distinct, and at last the cocoa- 
nut and mangrove-trees became visible. As the vessel 
entered port their impatience could not be restrained, and 
the captain of the vessel, sympathizing with their feelings, 
had no sooner droj)23ed anchor than he manned the boats, 
while the eager creatures crowded the gangway and ladder, 
all struggling to be the first to set foot on their native 
island. As boat-load after boat-load reached the shore, 
with a common feeling they knelt on the beacli and cried 
" Allah !" and offered up their humble thanksgiving to 
God, who had brought them safely back to their homes. 

The news of their arrival spread like wild-fire on every 
side, and soon their relatives and friends came flocking in 
from all directions, and glad shouts, and wild embracings, 
and floods of glad tears made a scene that stirred Stanley's 
heart to its profoundest depths. Still, there was a dark 
side to the picture. Scores of those that came rushing 
forward to greet them, fell back shedding tears, not of 
gladness, but of sorrow, for they found not those whom 
they fondly hoped to meet. Of the three hundred that 
had set out, nearly three years before, only one hundred 
and twelve were left — and of these, one, the poor sick 
woman, lived only long enough to be clasped in her 
father's arms, when she died. 

The great journey was ended, and Stanley, after paying 
off the living and the relatives of the dead, at last started 
for home. As he was about to enter the boat that was to 
bear him to the ship, the brave Uledi and the chiefs 



604 TESTIMONIALS. 

shoved it from shore, ana seizing Stanley, bore him through 
the surf on their shoulders. And when the latter stood on 
deck, as the vessel slowly steamed away, the last object he 
saw on shore through his eyes, filled with tears, was his 
Arab friends watching him till he should disappear from 
sight. 

An enthusiastic reception awaited him in England, 
while from every part of the continent distinguished honors 
were bestowed upon him. 

He had performed one of the most daring marches on 
record — traced out, foot by foot, one of the largest lakes of 
Central Africa, followed the mightiest river, which, from 
the creation, has been wrapped in mystery, from its source 
to its mouth, and made a new map of the ^'darh conti- 
nent:' 

Among the testimonials of the estimation in which the 
great work he had accomplished was held, may be men- 
tioned the gift of the portrait of King Humbert of Italy, 
by himself, with the superscription : 

"ALL' INTREPEDO VIAGGATORE, 
ENRICO STANLEY. 

UMBERTO RE. 
TO THE INTREPID TRAVELER, 
HENRY STANLEY. 

KING HUMBERT.;' 

The Prince of Wales also complimented him warmly on 
his achievements, while the Khedive of Egypt conferred on 
him the high distinction of the Grand CommaiKlership of 
the Order of Medjidie, with the star and collar. The 
Eoyal Geographical Society, of London, gave him a public 
reception, aiid made him Honorary Corresponding Mem- 
ber, and the Geographical Societies and Chambers of 
Commerce, of Paris, Italy and Marseilles sent him medals. 
He was also made Honorary Member of the Geographical 
Societies of Antwerp, Berlin, Bordeaux, Bremen, Ham- 



HONORED EVERYWHERE. 605 

burg, Lyons, Marseilles, Montpelier, Vienna, etc., etc. 
Honorary membership of almost every distinguished so- 
ciety in England and on the continent were conferred on 
him, and each and all seemed to vie with each other in 
heaping honors on the most intrepid traveler of modern 
times. Yet, as an American, it gives us great pleasure to 
record the following sentiment, showing that Stanley takes 
especial pride in being an American. He says : " For 
another honor I have to express my thanks — one which 
I may be pardoned for regarding as more precious than 
all the rest. The Government of the United States has 
crowned my success with its official approval, and the 
unanimous vote of thanks passed in both houses of legisla- 
ture, has made me proud for life of the expedition and its 
success." 



CHAPTEE XLI. 

SURVEYING THE LAND. 

SECURING THE FRUITS OF VICTORY— SUMMONED TO BRUSSELS BY KING LEOPOLD— GRAPHIC 
DESCRIPTION OF THE RESOURCES AND NEEDS OF THE COUNTRY— A COMPANY FORMED AND 
AN EXPEDITION ORGANIZED— ARRIVAL AT BANANA — A CRANKY LOT OF STEAMBOATS- 
ASCENDING THE RIVER— MUSSUKO THE FIRST STATION— LEFT TO THEIR OWN RESOURCES- 
BARGAINING WITH THE NATIVES. 

AFTER victory, tlie fruits of victory; and to secure tlie 
latter is often more difficult than to win the former. 
The soldier may conquer a realm; it requires the statesman 
to organize and establish sovereignty. We may be entranced 
with enthusiasm at the daring of the explorer; we must 
bow with respect to the man who transformed a wilderness 
into a peaceful field of industry and commerce. Doubt- 
less, at the end of his great Congo campaign, in 1878, Mr. 
Stanley longed for rest and home. Up to that time all 
his life had been a wandering, chiefly amid dangers and 
discomforts. He had written his name among those of the 
world's foremost explorers ; he had revolutionized the 
known geography of a vast continent ; he had added more 
to the world's stock of knowledge about the world than 
any other man since Drake and Frobisher. Well might 
he have considered his task accomplished, and have turned 
his way toward scenes of rest and pleasure. Instead of 
that, all these great deeds were but the prelude to his real 
life-work, to which he now addressed himself. 

Early in November, 1878, Mr. Stanley was invited by 
Leopold, King of the Belgians, to visit the royal palace 
606 



A MEMORABLE CONFERENCE. 607 

at Brussels, on a certain day and at a certain hour. He 
went. He found assembled to meet him a large number 
of persons of note from all parts of the world, mostly 
men interested in commerce and finance. The object of 
the meeting was to promote the enterprise of studying 
what might best be done with the Congo Eiver and its 
vast basin. Mr. Stanley was to tell them of the country 
and they were to consider how to open it up to trade and 
civilization. *' I have/' said the explorer, ^' passed through 
a land watered by the largest river of the African con- 
tinent, and that land knows no owner. A word to the 
wise is sufficient. You have cloths and hardware, and 
glassware and gunpowder, and those millions of natives 
have ivory and gums and rubber and dyestufiPs and in 
barter there is good profit !" 

This was a tempting prospect, and a course of action 
was soon fixed upon. A company was formed, one hundred 
thousand dollars capital was subscribed on the spot, and Mr. 
Stanley was commissioned to organize, equip, and lead an 
expedition. He was to open up a road through the Congo 
country to the heart of Africa. He was to erect stations, 
according to the means furnished, along the overland 
route for the convenience of the transport and the Euro- 
pean staff in charge, and to establish steam communication 
wherever available and safe. The stations were to be 
commodious, and sufiicient for all demands that were 
likely to be made on them. Ground was to be leased or 
purchased, adjoining the stations, so as to make them in 
time self-supporting. Land along each side of the route 
was also to be secured, to prevent persons ill-disposed 
toward the Company from interfering with its plans. The 
whole scheme was founded on the ideas of peace and 
equity. The expedition was to make its way by paying, 
not by fighting. 



608 CONVENING IN THE CONGO. 

Mr. Stanley went to work promptly and energetically. 
This meeting was held on November 25th. The directors 
of the enterprise met again on December 9th. On Janu- 
ary 2d, 1879, Mr. Stanley laid before them plans and 
estimates for the first six months' work, and on January 
23d he was on his way to Zanzibar. It was, of course, 
desirable to have experienced men associated with him, so 
he sought out as many of his old comrades as possible. 
In that work some time was spent, but in the latter part 
of May he left Zanzibar in the steamer "Albion," which had 
been chartered for the use of the expedition. He had 
with him sixty-eight men, recruited at Zanzibar, of whom 
fofty-five had accompanied him on his former journey 
down the Congo. At nine o'clock in the morning of 
August 14th he sighted land at the mouth of the Congo, 
and soon after was at anchor near the Dutch settlement at 
Banana Point. Here he met, for the first time, the other 
officers chosen to go with him on the expedition. There 
were one American, two Englishmen, two Danes, five 
Belgians, and one Frenchman. In the harbor was a 
small fleet of steamers intended for the expedition, and 
on shore was a considerable store of goods for bartering 
with the natives. 

The final arrangements for ascending the river were 
made at Banana, and they took much time and required 
much patience. The steamers were a motley set. One 
of them was capable of extraordinary freaks. "At one 
moment," says Mr. Stanley, " she had over ten atmos- 
pheres of steam, and rushed madly on, while we, ex- 
pectantly watching for the first signs of an explosion, 
were ready to jump overboard. But suddenly the gauge 
indicated descent, and the paddle-wheels could scarcely 
revolve ; while the rudder never had the slightest control 
of her movements." A second steamer had a fender all 



ON THE MOVE. 609 

around, and a third had so low a gunwale and so narrow 
a rudder as to be almost unmanageable. Nor were these 
the least of the difficulties. 

The officers of the expedition were, with two honorable 
exceptions, dissatisfied. Their contracts and rank were 
complained of. Most of them clamored for all kinds of 
expenses ; one demanded more pay ; another objected to 
his messmates. By judicious treatment, however, the sus- 
ceptibilities of each were gradually soothed, harmony w^as 
restored, and on August 21st, seven days after Mr. Stan- 
ley's arrival at Banana, the vessel^ of the expedition, con- 
sisting of the " Albion " and eight other craft of various 
sizes (the largest being the steel twin screw steamer " La 
Belgique," sixty-five feet long and eleven feet beam ; and 
the smallest the " Jeune Africaine/' a screw launch, twenty- 
five feet long and five feet ten inches beam) steamed out 
of Banana Haven, and began the ascent of the noble river, 
whose existence was first made known to Europe through 
the enterprise of the hardy Portuguese navigator Diego 
Cam, in the year 1484. Boma, once the horrible empo- 
rium of the slave-trade, was reached after a sail of eight 
days ; a depot was formed at Mussuko, four hours higher 
up the stream on the south bank ; and the " Albion,'' after 
making one or two trips between Mussuko and Banana 
Point, in order to bring up the goods which had been left 
behind, was released from river duty, taken down to 
Banana Point, coaled, and sent home, on September 17th, 
direct to Europe. 

Thus the expedition was thrown upon its own resources 
entirely. So far, all had gone well. In thirty-four days 
it had reached its first base of operations, ninety miles 
from the sea. All its supplies had been brought thither 
in safety, and the outlook for the future was promising. 
Soon after the departure of the " Albion " steps were taken 



610 A ROYAL "palaver. 



J? 



to advancestill farther up-stream, and the next station was 
made at Vivi. This was six hours' sail in a nine-knot 
steamer above Boma, and just above the little island of 
Calavanga discovered by the ill-fated English explorer 
Tuckey in 1816. The site was carefully chosen, and Vivi 
has since become the most important station on the river. 
But before Mr. Stanley could commence operations in 
September, 1879, much difficult work had to be got 
through. A palaver had to be held, and terms required 
to be arranged with the neighboring chiefs, of whom there 
were five. At the palaver which was summoned, the five 
chiefs formed a somewhat motley group. Vivi Mavungu 
of Banzi Vivi, the senior lord of Vivi, ^' stood out, short 
of stature and club-footed, with an affected scowl of defiant 
truculency, which he had intended for one of bland amia- 
bility, dressed in a blue lackey's coat, a knit Phrygian cap 
of vari-colored cotton, and a lower cloth of gaudy pattern." 
Another was clad " in an English red military tunic, a 
brown felt hat, an ample cloth of check pattern round the 
lower portion of his body, anklets of brass, and a necklace 
of elephant hair wove through a few fetish relics for good 
luck." A third was befrocked in a dark blue sol- 
dier's coat ; and a fourth could boast of a black cloth 
frock-coat and a black silk hat, while his nether parts 
were encircled by an ample robe of crimson savelist. The 
introductions being over, the object of the expedition was 
explained through the medium of a lingster or interpreter; 
proposals were made on the part of the association ; and 
the chiefs, after begging a bottle of gin apiece, returned to 
their houses to consider what the mundele, or trader, as 
Mr. Stanley was now called, had said to them. 

On the following day they returned, and as the confer- 
ence which followed was, in its general features, similar to 
many others that were held, we may as well use Mr. 
Stanley's description of it : — 



AMICABLE ARRANGEMENTS. 611 

" Punctually at the time appointed the Vivi chiefs and 
their armed retinues appeared, tricked out in Congo fash- 
ion's garb, second-hand military and lackey coats and gay 
cotton cloths. All the men were sober and cleanly. The 
mats were unrolled, and the decorous demeanor suited to 
the important palaver was assumed, when, suddenly, at a 
signal from the lingster, the salute was given, none rising 
until the senior in rank had risen, bowed, and resumed 
his seat. 

" The conference began by the lingster, Massala, de- 
scribing how the chiefs had gone home and consulted 
together for a long time ; they had agreed that if the Mun- 
dele would stay with them, that of all the land unoccupied 
by villages, or fields and gardens, I should make my 
choice, and build as many houses, and make as many 
roads, and do any kind of work I liked ; that I should be 
considered as the ' Mundele ' of Vivi, and no other white 
man should put foot on Vivi soil, which stretched from 
the Lufu up to the Banza Kulu district, and inland do\Yn 
to the Loa River, without permission from me ; no native 
chief of inland or riverside should molest any man in my 
employ within the district of Vivi ; help should be given 
for work, and the people of Vivi, such as liked, should 
engage themselves as workmen ; anybody, white or black, 
native or foreign, passing to and fro through the land, 
should do so freely, night and day, without let or hin- 
drance; if any disagreement should arise between any of 
my people, white or black, and the people of Vivi, they, 
the chiefs, would promise not to try and revenge them- 
selves, but bring their complaint before the Mundele of 
Vivi, that he might decide upon the right and the wrong 
of it ; and if any of their people were caught in the act of 
doing wrong, then the white man shall promise that his 
chief shall be called to hear the case against him, and if 



612 GOOD AT A BARGAIN. 

the crime is proved the chief shall pay the fine according 
to custom. 

" * All this/ continued Massala, * shall be set down in 
writing, and you shall read it, and the English lingster 
shall tell it straight to us. But first we must settle what 
the chiefs shall receive in return for these concessions.' " 

This was not so easily settled. If they know little of the 
arts of civilization, the Congoese know how to drive a bar- 
gain. " In the management of a bargain," Mr. Stanley 
remarks, "I should back the Congoese native against Jew 
or Christian, Parsee or Banyan in all the round world. 
Unthinking men may perhaps say cleverness at barter and 
shrewdness in trade consort not with their unsophisticated 
condition and degraded customs. Unsophisticated is the 
very last term I should ever apply to an African child or 
man in connection with the knowledge of how to trade. 
... I have seen a child of eight do more tricks of trade 
in an hour than the cleverest European trader on the Congo 
could do in a month. There is a little boy at Bolobo, 
aged six, named Lingenji, who would make more profit out 
of five dollars' worth of' cloth than an English boy of fif- 
teen would make out of fifty dollars' worth." Four hours 
were spent before the bargain was concluded, and Mr. 
Stanley found himself obliged to pay one hundred and 
sixty dollars down in cloth and a rental of ten dollars per 
month. The papers confirming the agreement were then 
drawn up in due form, and signed by the various parties 
concerned in the matter. 



CHAPTEE XLII. 

OPENING UP A NEW EEALM. 

TIVI, THE SECOND STATION, PAID FOR WITH TOO HIGH A PRICE— PLANNING FOR A CITY— BUILD- 
ING ROADS AND CONVEYING STEAMBOATS OVERLAND AROUND THE CATARACTS— LEOPOLDVILLE 
AND STANLEY POOL — FRIENDLINESS OF THE NATIVES— SLAVE TRADERS— CIVILIZATION OF A 
BLOODTHIRSTY CHIEF. 

MK. STANLEY, as " Mundele of Vivi/' had no good 
reason to congratulate himself upon his bargain. 
He had, of course, secured a site for his station, but he 
had been compelled to pay a big price for it, and his land 
was a mere wilderness of rocky and barren hillsides. All 
the really good land at Vivi was already occupied, and 
the natives would not part with it. On the evening of the 
day on which his contract was signed he wrote in his 
diary : " I am not altogether pleased with my purchase. . 
It has been most expensive, in the first place, and the rent 
is high. However, necessity has compelled me to do it. 
It is the highest point of navigation of the Congo, oppo- 
site which a landing could be effected. The landing-place 
is scarcely three hundred yards long, but if the shores 
were improved by leveling, available room for ships could 
be found for fifteen hundred yards.'' On the plateau near 
the river was room for a town of twenty thousand people, 
and the situation seemed salubrious. So a road was made 
up to the plateau, buildings erected, and a large quantity of 
goods brought up from Mussuko, and safely housed. 

So far the expedition had had plain sailing. The Congo 
affords a magnificent waterway from the ocean, at Banana, 

613 



614 ROAD BUILDING. 

up to Vivi. But a little distance above Vivi are the 
Livingstone Falls, rendering further navigation impossible. 
It was therefore necessary to build a road and make fur- 
ther progress overland. The only road then existing was 
a mere foot-track through a wild and rugged country. 
For a wagon to pass over it was out of the question. So 
work was begun on a new road, from Vivi to Isangila, 
fifty- two miles above, which had been chosen as the site 
of the next station. The magnitude of this task can only 
be compared with Hannibars passage over the Alps. 
The country was wild and rugged, and ruled by thirty or 
forty different chiefs. Each of these chiefs had to be ne- 
gotiated with and won over, and each in his own way. 
The amount of " palavering " done was appalling. More- 
over, the individual owners of farms and gardens had to 
be dealt with, and often paid exorbitant prices for their 
land. Surveying the route was a long and toilsome job. 
The work of clearing and grading would have been stu- 
pendous had it been designed merely to make it a wagon- 
road. But it was to be more than that. It was to be a 
road over which several of the steamboats could be trans- 
ported, to be re-launched on the river above the falls. 
Mr. Stanley never faltered, however, and at noon of March 
18th, 1880, the work of making the road was begun. 
The dense long grass was pulled up, trees were hewn down, 
the ground was cleared, leveled, and graded, bridges were 
built, and as the road advanced, the wagons, laden with 
stores and boats and sections of the steamers, were con- 
stantly moved forward. All along the route considerable 
assistance was obtained from the natives, many hiring 
themselves out at so much per diem to labor on the road, 
and others bringing supplies of food ; but, considering 
the sraallness of his really effective force, the task which 
Mr. Stanley undertook and achieved was enormous. On 



GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS. 615 

January 2d, 1881, within ten months from the actual be- 
ginning of the work, the road, within a few feet of fifty- 
two miles in length, was completed, the boats were in 
camp on the shore at Isangila waiting to be repaired, 
scraped, and painted, and the "Royal," a suiall screw 
steamer presented to the expedition by the King of the 
Belgians, was steaming on the river. 

From Isangila there was smooth navigation up-stream 
for eighty-eight miles, to the Falls of Ntombo Mataka. 
Adjoining the latter is the district of Manyanga, where 
Mr. Stanley decided to erect the next station, and on May 
1st, 1881, the whole expedition was safely encamped there 
— of his achievements thus far Mr. Stanley speaks with 
modesty, although an expression of the highest j)^"i<^e 
would be most justifiable. " We had completed," he ob- 
serves, '^ within seventy days, a total journey of two thou- 
sand four hundred and sixty-four English statute miles, 
by ascending and descending the various reaches from 
camp to camp in fourteen round voyages, the entire dis- 
tance of eighty-eight miles of navigable water that 
extends between the cataract of Isangila and the cataract 
of Ntombo Mataka, abreast of the district of Manyanga. 
We were now one hundred and forty miles above Vivi, to 
accomplish which distance we had been employed four 
hundred and thirty-six days in road-making and in con- 
veying fifty tons of goods, with a force of sixty-eight Zan- 
zibaris and an equal number of West Coast and inland 
satives. During this period we had traveled four thou- 
sand eight hundred and sixteen English miles, which, 
divided by the number of days occupied in this heavy 
transport work, gives a quotient of over eleven miles per 

This expedition was intended to reach, as its farthest 
point, Stanley Pool. That place was still ninety-five 



616 A COMMERCIAL CENTRE. 

miles away, and every mile was full of difficulties. The 
river was not navigable, so an overland road had to be 
surveyed, " palavered " for, purchased and built, and the 
boats dragged over it. Worse still, Mr. Stanley was 
stricken down with fever, and for a long time lay on the 
brink of the grave. But even from his sick bed he con- 
tinued to direct affairs and to inspire his followers with 
his own unshaken faith in the success of the enterprise. 
So, by December 3d, 1881, the expedition was safe at 
Stanley Pool with the steamer " En Avant " launched in 
the Bay of Kintamo, beyond which were thousands of 
miles of navigable water. The new station was founded 
on Leopold Hill, a fine site overlooking the river, and 
was named Leopold ville, in honor of the royal patron of 
the enterprise. Doubtless this place will become the chief 
centre of Central African commerce. Its situation is mag- 
nificent. The climate is salubrious. The surrounding 
natives are friendly. Other stations have since been 
founded, further up the river, all tributary to Leopold- 
ville. The most distant of them is on the island of Wane 
Eusari, at the foot of Stanley Falls, one thousand and 
sixty-eight miles from Leopoldville. 

In all this vast and novel undertaking the physical 
characteristics of the country presented the chief diffi- 
culties. With the natives there was no serious trouble. 
It was necessary to palaver a great deal, and spend much 
time and money on them. But they never attempted 
forcible resistance. On the contrary, they were, as a 
rule, favorable to the work, and either aided in it or 
looked on with interest and approval. Everywhere Mr. 
Stanley was remembered as the white man, who, six years 
ago, had descended the river in his boat. He was 
greeted everywhere with cries of " Stanley !" or " lande- 
lay!" The natives of Vivi called him "Bula Matari!" 



SIGNS OF TROUBLE. 617 

or " Rock-Breaker/' because of his feats in road-making, 
and this name and fame preceded liim all the way up 
the river. At Manyanga he was at first looked upon 
with suspicion, but soon reconciled the natives to his 
presence. His old enemies, the Basokos, on the Aru- 
wimi, greeted him with cordiality, and invited him to 
camp among them as an honored guest and friend. At 
Boloko, for the only time, was there evon danger of 
bloodshed, and then it was sufficient to discharge his 
cannon into the water of the river. 

On several occasions, however, Mr. Stanley felt 
decidedly bloodthirsty. This was when, on the way from 
Leopoldville to Stanley Falls, he found village after 
village desolated by the Arab slave-traders. He overtook 
and captured one of these marauding parties, and was 
strongly tempted to have them all shot or hanged. But 
on consideration, he saw that he had not the slightest 
legal authority to do so. 

One native chief, Lutete, of Banza Lungu, was dis- 
posed to make trouble. In 1882, when he first saw one 
of the white agents of the company, he exclaimed to the 
negro escort: ^'Give me that white man and you may 
go in peace.'' " What do you want him for ?" they 
asked. " To cut his throat," was the reply of the savage 
chief, who at the time was drnnk on palm wine. They 
persuaded him to forego his murderous designs, but for a 
long time Lutete gave them much trouble, bullying them 
and levying blackmail. The station was established at 
Banza Lungu, however, just a mile away from Lutete's 
house, under the charge of an English officer and twelve 
men. And two years later Lutete was furnishing them 
with servants and supplies, sending liis children to the 
Baptist Sunday and day-school, and leading altogether a 
most exemplary life. This is only one of countless 



618 STERN RETRIBUTION. 

instances that might be cited of the civilization of the 
natives of the Congo. 

'* The natives," says Mr. Stanley, " are kindly disposed 
toward the whites, and give them no trouble. Of course, it 
is impossible to tell what might happen if unscrupulous 
white traders should sell them Winchester rifles, powder, 
cartridges and other implements of warfare, or if they 
should show a disposition to domineer over the natives and 
defraud them. They have a fine sense of honor and justice, 
and severely punish offenders against their laws. On one 
occasion, while traveling along the north bank of the 
Congo, in the vicinity of the cataracts, I came across a 
market-place, and near it saw two fellows buried in the 
earth up to their necks. I was told that they were being 
punished for stealing a handful of salt each. At another 
time I saw a native hanging by the neck to a tree. From 
the chief, whom I asked for an explanation, I learned that 
he was a thief. Your ' boodle ' aldermen would proba- 
bly find that an uncomfortable vicinity to live in. 

" There are also stringent laws against carrying weap- 
ons of any sort at the market-places. These market-places 
are situated on neutral ground, and every precaution is 
taken to preserve order there. At certain seasons of the 
year, when three or four tribes are anxious to do some 
trading with each other, a place about equidistant from 
the villages of several tribes is selected, and here they 
meet to exchange goats for bananas, or corn for wine, and 
so on through the list of articles which they produce or 
possess. The gatherings are never marred by any disor- 
der or evidences of brutality, although sometimes, when 
they are exhilarated by palm wine, or the sort of beer 
which they make in a crude way from corn and sugar- 
cane, they have a pretty jolly time." 



CHAPTEK XLIII. 

THE COUNTKY AND THE PEOPLE. 

LOCATION OF VILLAGES ALONG THE RIVER— HOW THE HUTS ARE BUILT— FURNITURE— AN ABUN- 
DANCE OF IDOI^— PROTECTION AGAINST CROCODILES— THE WHITE MAN'S POWERFUL FETISH- 
CONCEPTIONS OF THE DEITY— KING NRISUNDl'S COURT— A ROYAL REPLY AND A ROYAL GIFT— 
PORCIBLE PURCHASE— SHREWD NEGRO BARGAINERS— OCCUPATIONS OF THE NATIVES— FISHING 
AND HUNTING— DANGEROUS SPORT WITH THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 

VOLUMES might be written in description of the 
great country which Mr. Stanley has, under the 
auspices of the King of the Belgians, thrown open to civili- 
zation and to the commerce of the world. Going up the 
Congo, through the tangle of islands at its mouth, one 
iinds that about half-way between Banana and Boma the 
mountain formation begins to approach the river. The 
flat' shores, with their splendid tropical vegetation, give 
place to barren hills, often black with the ashes of the 
burnt grass up to the very summit. Only now and then 
groups of palm trees may be seen in the valleys, under 
which the traveler rightly suspects the presence of native 
settlements. Just as the ancient Saxons once made their 
homes beneath the shadow of a grove or in the neighbor- 
hood of some spring or brook, so the negroes love to erect 
their huts in similar places. Hidden behind the high grass 
and bushes, through which winds a narrow path, and some- 
times upon the tops of the hills, lie the native villages, 
generally consisting of huts irregularly scattered on a 
leveled piece of ground, though sometimes a more sym- 
metrical order is observed. The native huts are built of 

619 



620 DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. 

reeds, have a projecting and bluntly-covered roof nearly 
three yards high, and are divided into two parts— i. e., the 
real hut, often very clean, and made of ribs of papyrus or 
thin bamboos ; and an open court, the back wall of which 
forms the front wall of the hut, and the floor of which, 
like that of the hut, consists of beaten clay, always swept 
very clean, and, when guests are expected, covered with 
mats. This court is the usual reception-room, although 
the hut itself is always placed at the disposal of Euro- 
peans. The hut is entered through a kind of narrow 
window, opening about half a yard above the floor, and 
provided with a shutter. The furniture is scanty. A kind 
of bed-place, a few utensils ; that is all. 

On the walls of the court are fixed the idols, called 
fetishes, the number and shape of which are vaiious, ac- 
cording to the purpose to which they are destined. But 
in general the fetish is meant to break the power of other 
people's fetishes, and to protect its owner from danger and 
give him power. If, in spite of all precautions, the owner 
of a fetish is unfortunate, it is attributed to the fact that 
some other man's fetish has been stronger than his own. 
Here on the Congo the crocodile is considered to be a 
fetish, and the negro, in order to protect himself against 
its treacherous attacks, lays on the shore of the river a 
bundle of bast or other material, from the end of which 
protrudes one or two crocodile's teeth. If, after all, he 
should be devoured by a crocodile, it is only because it was 
more powerful than his own fetish. Nevertheless, the 
negroes pass places where crocodiles lurk, confident in the 
fetishes they have exposed on the banks. 

A few years ago there happened here a tragi-comic in- 
cident, in which the fetish of the white man played a curi- 
ous part, and proved to be very powerful over the poor 
Africans. A Portuguese man-of-war had bombarded a 



POTENT FETISHES. 621 

native village, because the inhabitants had been guilty of 
piracy on the river. The people fled to the mountains. 
When all was again quiet they returned to their village, 
where they found some unexploded bombs. They stared 
at the queer black things, not knowing what to make of 
them. A grand council was held, and the wise men of 
the tribe declared the black things to be dangerous 
fetishes belonging to the whites, and left behind on pur- 
pose to ruin the village. The proposal to obviate such a 
misfortune by burning the fetishes was unanimously ac- 
cepted, and the bombs were cast into a large bonfire, round 
which crowded the rejoicing natives. All at once the 
bombs exploded, and thirty or forty negroes fell mortally 
wounded. There is another fetish belonging to the white 
man, more powerful than all the negro fetishes put to- 
gether, and that is — alcohol. 

There are two kinds of negro fetishes ; human figures 
cut in wood, and hung with all kinds of rags, pieces of 
brass, copper, iron, etc., and queer bundles of plants or 
bast, ornamented with shells and ribbons. We find a sign 
of a higher conception of Deity in the fact that in a 
lonely place near Ponta da Lenha there is a hut with a 
round roof, perfectly empty, which is dedicated to " the 
invisible fetish." In front of this hut is a broad avenue, 
where every day a vessel of water is placed for the in- 
visible fetish, whose custom it is to walk there every night. 
At the end of the avenue a mass of iron is partly sunk 
into the ground ; on this the fetish rests. In front of the 
seat is an altar-like erection made of the skulls of ante- 
lopes and hippopotamuses. All idols are generally treated 
with great reverence. 

" When," says Dr. Zinkgraf, who visited the Congo in 
the wake of Mr. Stanley's expedition, " I once visited 
King Nrisundi, he led me into the hall of his hut, in 



622 AFRICAN ROYALTY. 

which a great fetish in human form, painted red, with a 
wide-open mouth, was seated on a table. We sat down on 
two stools at the same table, and when the King had drunk 
the gin I had brought him, he ordered a servant to kneel 
down and pour a cupful into the mouth of the fetish, 
afterward clapping his hands four times. This ceremony 
was performed with the utmost gravity, but I preserved a 
solemn aspect with some difficulty. Whether the idol 
was provided with a hollow receptacle for the gin, which 
was afterward drunk by the King or priests like those 
at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, I had no means of ascer- 
taining. King Nrisundi possessed a certain dignity. He 
was dressed in a colored jacket and a long undergarment 
fastened by a belt, in which were stuck an iron bell and 
the skin of a wild-cat, the signs of royalty, as well as a 
great umbrella. In his hand the King held a long staff 
ornamented with the figure of an idol cut in ivory. When 
I told the King that I had come with a message from a 
powerful white man — Dr. Chavannes — who wished the 
King to come and see him, the latter ordered his interpreter, 
who speaks a language which passes here for international 
— a mixture of English, Portuguese, and the native 
dialect — to tell me that if the white man were really so 
powerful he could quite as well come to the King. For 
an African monarch, who is generally only an impudent 
beggar, this reply was regal enough, and so also was the 
present he gave me in exchange for two bottles of gin, 
namely, a fat duck, worth at least fifteen bottles. How- 
ever, the next morning the King condescended to pay us 
a visit, first partaking freely of the gin, wine, and tobacco 
we set before him to satisfy his constant demands. After 
some hesitation he decided to refuse the meats we offered, 
as they might have been fetishes. 

" The custom of exchanging presents seems to be pretty 



FORCING TRADE. 623 

widely spread in Africa, and is practiced by high and low, 
rich and poor. Even the most impoverished negro gives 
those who sleep in his court at least some bananas. We 
often used to stop at the hut of one of King Nrisundi's 
muleks, a small and shabby old man with a friendly 
smile, and for a negro, a very modest demeanor. Although 
he possessed very few hens, he always, with great hu- 
mility, presented one to his guests. We were on capital 
terms with this old man ; he carried our baggage, always 
choosing the heaviest articles ; he accompanied us into the 
hills, and provided us with fowls. But once he made a 
scene. He drank too much of the gin we had brought 
him, and, becoming drunk, refused to sell us two hens at 
the usual price of three bottles of gin. We cut the matter 
short by ordering our servants to catch two good hens and 
lay three bottles of gin outside the door of his hut. He 
protested against this forcible mode of purchase, and would 
not take the bottles, but placed them before the door of 
our tent. This intermezzo, however, did not disturb our 
friendship, and next day he came with his usual modest 
mein, took his three bottles of gin, and even mad^ us a 
present of another hen. 

" In general the negroes are capital tradesmen, and alive 
to their own advantage. But the fact tliat they have no 
notion of the value of time makes it difficult to deal with 
them. When they have once fixed upon a price, one is either 
forced to yield to their demands for want of patience, or to 
refuse to deal at all. A fcAv days ago we went to the native 
market at Sono N'Boma, about fifteen kilos north of Boma, 
to buy a quantity of cattle and fowls. After bargaining 
for an hour, we were obliged to return with nothing but a 
single goat, for the sly negroes, thinking we would not 
make such a long and difficult march for nothing, de- 
manded far too high a price. For the goat we paid in 



624 ' AFRICAN PRODUCTS. 

goods to the value of two dollars and seventy cents. A 
duck is worth a chest of gin costing seventy cents. Six or 
seven eggs cost a bottle of gin. These are a few of the 
African market prices, which, considering the condition of 
the country, may be called dear ; for j)igs, sheep, goats, 
ducks, fowls, etc., need absolutely no attention, and find 
their food for themselves. 

" The sale of natural products is a fair source of profit 
to the natives. Besides the African beans, the madex, the 
woandu, and the n'sangi — the last two of which have 
a very fine flavor — something like that of young Euro- 
pean beans, the principal staple of trade is the fruit of 
the oil-palm. Palm-oil, together with ivory and caout- 
chouc, is one of the best export articles. On the coast of 
West Africa, long caravans, sometimes consisting of five 
hundred men, come down from the mountains to exchange 
23alm-oil for stuffs, pow^der, guns, and arms. At such 
times the large rooms of the factories present a lively 
scene. Here wares, packed in bark, are proved, weighed, 
and piled up in heaps; there an immense crowd waits at 
the barrier for their ' bons ' to be paid in kind ; bales of 
stuffs are opened, and pieces of gay-colored calico unrolled. 
In one corner is a heap of old flint-guns ; in another, 
square piles of gin-chests of the well-known gray color, 
and in the distance is seen the small but well-filled powder 
magazine of the factory. But it is not always that the 
caravans are frequent, for the vacillations of African trade 
are by no means inconsiderable. 

" Besides trade, agriculture, fishing, and hunting are 
the means by which the natives gain their living. Their 
agriculture consists in a rough cultivation of a piece of 
ground which has been cleared of brushwood, grass, etc., ' 
and which, when once planted, yields rich harvests w^ithout 
further trouble, at least, only that of keeping the ground 



FARMING AND FISHING. 625 

clear of weeds, which is not always done. Bananas, 
raamocs, woandus, etc., grow luxuriously, and frequently 
plantations occupy a considerable tract of land near the 
villages. The fields are irregularly shaped, often scarcely 
leveled, and only sometimes are deep, regular furrows, 
about a foot and a half high, drawn. There seems to be 
only one agricultural tool, made of the knotty end of a 
root, into which a piece of iron is driven. This tool is 
common throughout Africa, and is partly of native, partly 
of English manufacture, for the native iron is very bad. 

" The natives fish with bow-nets and English angling 
rods, but they also use the spear, especially in fishing a 
kind of flounder that lives in shallow water. This spear 
is a simple stick, furnished with an iron point without 
hooks. The fish is simply broiled ; when dried they are 
an article of trade among the natives. Being possessed 
only of old flint-guns, the natives on the Congo confine 
their hunting to the smaller animals. ' The flesh of the 
antelope is now and then offered for sale as game. In 
the Musserongo land, hunting those swift animals among 
the mountains must be very troublesome. We once 
chanced upon an antelope hunt among the Musserongos. 
We wanted to climb the Gonambandshi, which is situated 
in their country, on the South of the Congo, and to find 
in the village of Kiaba, which lies on the river itself, a 
native guide. While we were bargaining for one, there 
suddenly appeared from different directions, eight or ten 
fellows armed with long guns, who, forming a circle 
round us, pointed in the direction of the above-named 
mountain. The chief invited us to follow him. At first 
we thought that we had to pass through some enemy's 
territory, and we were confirmed in this idea when the 
chief begged us to make no noise. On arriving, after an 
hour's march, at the edge of a wide valley, it became 



626 HUNTING THE ANTELOPE. 

clear that our Musserongos had no thought of war, but 
of hunting. We could not imagine what game they 
were after for a long time. It might have been either 
leopards or hares. Each man crept cautiously down 
into the valley, and at last, my attention being called to 
them by the chief, I saw in the distance three light- 
brown antelopes, scarcely to be distinguished from the 
gray rocks and brownish hills. I and the chief hurried 
after them, and I wounded one ; but we could not follow 
them farther, as there were more imjoortant things to be 
done. 

" It was not surprising that my shot, taking effect at the 
distance of one hundred and fifty metres, occasioned the 
greatest astonishment among the natives ; for, having only 
poor weapons, which they load with bits of iron or copper 
wire, they can only hit an animal when quite close. They 
do this very cleverly by approaching near under the cover 
of the grass or rocks, winding through like serpents, and 
in this way they even sometimes succeed in killing a hip- 
popotamus with their miserable guns. An interesting 
story is told of a negro who crept close up to a hippopota- 
mus, which was sleeping on a sand-bank, but when the 
poor fellow fired his gun missed, and he was crushed to 
death by the animal. It is very dangerous to hunt these 
creatures. About a year ago three English officers and 
their boat were destroyed by a hippopotamus on the Upper 
Congo, and lately, when Dr. Chavenne went hunting, his 
boat was surrounded by about fifteen of the snorting and 
growling monsters, one of which tried to toss the boat up, 
but, fortunately finding no ground, failed. However, this 
kind of hunting is very exciting, for good luck plays a 
great part. The big heads of the hip2)opotami rise like 
lightning above the surface of the water, only to disappear 
as suddenly, and a bullet is only fatal when it strikes the 



ABUNDANCE OF GAME. 627 

beast in the temple. A bullet from my Kropatscbek cara- 
bine, system Mauser, capable of hitting at one thousand 
four hundred metres, only penetrated a hand's breadth the 
neck of a hippopotamus at which I had aimed. But an 
explosive bullet from a so-called express-gun broke the 
whole of the eyebone of an animal at a distance of almost 
seventy metres. A hunter may be well satisfied with the 
sport to be found in the Congo districts. There are innu- 
merable water fowl on all the sand-banks and flat islands, 
and a roasted African wild duck is excellent eating. 
Leopards and antelopes may be hunted in the watery val- 
leys, the buffalo farther inland, and in the neighborhood 
of Nokki even elephents are to be met with." • 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE CONGO FREE STATE. 

ORGANIZING A GOVERNMENT FOR THE NEW STATE— THE BERLIN CONGRESS— MODERN IMPROVE- 
MENTS INTRODUCED INTO THE WILDERNESS— AREA OF THE CONGO STATE— ITS LAKES AND 
RIVERS— LENGTH AND VOLUME OF THE CONGO RIVER— THE SCENERY ALONG ITS SHORES— PECU- 
LIAR EFFECT OF AFRICAN SUNSHINE— POPULATION OF THE FREE STATE— THE CLIMATE — COM- 
PARISON WITH THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY- NATURAL RESOURCES. 

• 

MR. STANLEY'S discoveries, and the enterprise of 
the " Committee for the Study of the Upper 
Congo'' — which was the real name of the company under 
which he was sent out — soon attracted universal attention, 
and that, too, of a most practical kind. It became evident 
that the Congo valley must have a fixed and potent 
government. King Leopold did not desire to assume 
the sole responsibility, nor, indeed, would the other Euro- 
pean powers have agreed to his transferring so large a slice 
of the African continent into a Belgian colony. Accord- 
ingly, an international conference was summoned to meet 
at Berlin, and the result of its deliberations was the erec- 
tion of the entire valley into a potentially independent 
commonwealth, called the Congo Free State. On February 
25th, 1885, the treaty was signed by the representatives 
of the United States and the chief European powers. A 
Constitution and Government were provided for the new 
state, with King Leopold at its head, under the protection 
of the treaty-signing powers. Thenceforward civilization 
made rapid progress. The state was admitted to the In- 
ternational Postal Union, and post-ofiices were opened at 
628 



I 



CONGO FREE STATE. 629 

Banana, Boma, Vivi, and elsewhere. Courts, schools, etc., 
were also established. A railroad is now being con- 
structed over the route of Mr. Stanley's roads around the 
cataracts, connecting with the steamer routes, and mak- 
ing an unbroken line of steam transportation from Stanley- 
Falls to the Atlantic Ocean. 

The entire area of the Congo basin is estimated by Mr. 
Stanley at one million five hundred and eight thousand 
square miles. Some of it is claimed by France, some by 
Portugal, and some is yet unapportioned. But the 0V4ir- 
whelming bulk, one million sixty-five thousand and two 
hundred square miles, belongs to the Congo Free State. 
It has not all yet been surveyed, of course, but its char- 
acter is pretty well known. It has vast forests, extensive 
and fertile plains, and unsurpassed systems of lakes and 
rivers. Its lakes cover thirty-one thousand seven hun- 
dred square miles ; among them being Lakes Leopold II, 
Muta Nzige, Tanganyika, Bangweola, and Mweru. The 
Congo, of course, is the principal river. It ia one of the 
five or six longest streams in the world, and in point of 
volume surpasses all but the Amazon. Says Mr. Stanley 
of its course : 

" From the Atlantic Ocean is a navigable length of 
one hundred and ten miles, as far as Vivi, thence upward 
to Isangila, the lower series of the Livingstone Falls, fifty 
miles ; from Isangila to Manyanga we have a tolerably 
navigable stretch of eighty-eight miles ; between Many- 
anga and Leopoldville is the ujDper series of Livingstone 
Falls, along a length of eighty-five miles ; from Leopold- 
ville upward to Stanley Falls we have a navigable length 
of one thousand and sixty-eight miles; from the lowest 
falls of this last series to Nyangwe there is a course of 
three hundred and eighty-five miles ; from Nyangwe to 
Mweru the river course extends four hundred and forty- 



630 VOLUME OF THE CONGO. 

eight miles ; the length of Lake Mweru is sixty-seven 
miles; thence to Lake Bangweolo is two hundred and 
twenty miles ; Lake Bangweolo, or Bemba, is one hun- 
dred and sixty -seven miles long ; and thence to its sources 
in the Chibale Hills, the Chambezi has a length of three 
hundred and sixty miles ; the full total of these several 
courses being three thousand and thirty-four miles." 

Unlike the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, Ganges, Volga, 
and, indeed, almost all other great rivers, the Congo has no 
de^a. It discharges itself by a single unbroken estuary 
seven miles and a half broad, in many places over tw^o 
hundred fathoms deep, and with a current of from five to 
seven knots ^n hour. The volume of water brought down 
has been variously estimated ; the lowest estimate being 
two million, and the highest four million three hundred 
and eighty- two thousand cubic feet per second ; but the 
data on which the latter has been based can scarcely be 
regarded as reliable. After nearly a day's experiments, 
however, above Stanley Pool, nearly two hundred and 
fifty miles from the sea, Mr. Stanley found that, in the 
early part of March, when the river was lowest, a volume 
of one million four hundred and forty thousand cubic feet 
of water flowed per second ; and by taking the altitude of 
high level, as shown on the face of a cliff, he calculated 
that at least two million five hundred and thirty thousand 
cubic feet of water must flow every second at the height 
of the rainy season. Before this water can reach the sea 
it is swollen by the contributions of a multitude of rivers. 
The Mississip23i, when at the height of its March flood, 
has an outflow of one million one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand cubic feet per second ; so that its volume must be 
very greatly exceeded by that of the Congo. At Banana 
the tide rises six feet ; at Ponta da Lenha from eighteen 
to twenty-one inches ; and at Boma from two to three 



CONGO SCENEKY. 631 

inclies. Twice in the year the volume of tlie river is 
nearly doubled. The first or lesser rise begins at Boma 
in the latter half of March, and attains its greatest height 
between the 18th and olst of May. The second or greater 
rise begins during the first days of September, and con- 
tinues to between the 15th and 25th of December. Be- 
tween the 15th of January and the 10th of March there 
is a steady fall, after which the river remains unchanged 
until the lesser rise begins again. 

The scenery along the banks of the Congo is afiirmed 
by all who have seen it to be magnificent. Mr. Stanley 
has seen none to equal it. In his opinion neither the Indus 
nor the Ganges, the Nile nor the Niger, nor any of the 
rivers of North or South America has any glories of moun- 
tain or foliage or sunlight which are not greatly excelled 
by those of his favorite river, and many of the finest pas- 
sages in his volumes are devoted to descriptions of the 
beauty and magnificence seen along its banks. But 
instead of citing any of these, we will transcribe the fol- 
lowing description of the peculiar effect of the sunlight in 
Africa, an effect which is doubtless due to the condition of 
the atmosphere. 

"When speaking of African sunshine, it must be 
remembered that there are different qualities of sunshine. 
For instance, there is the hard, white, naked, undisguised 
sunshine of Northeastern America ; there is the warm, 
drowsy, hazy sunshine of the English summer; there is 
the bright, cheery, purified sunshine of the Mediterranean. 
African sunshine, however, always appears to me, Avith all 
its great heat, to be a kind of superior moonlight, judging 
from its effects on scenery. Once or twice in this book I 
write of ^ solemn-looking hills.' I can only attribute this 
apparent solemnity to the peculiar sunshine. It deepens 
the shadows, and darkens the dark-green foliage of the 



632 POPULATION OF COXGO. 

forest, wliile it imparts a wan appearance or a cold reflec- 
tion of light to naked slopes and woodless liill-to]3s. Its 
effect is a chill austerity — an indescribable solemnity, a 
repelling unsociability. Your sympathies are not warmed 
by it ; silence has set its seal upon it ; before it you become 
speechless. Gaze your utmost on the scejie, admire it as you 
may, worship it if you will, but your love is not needed. 
Speak not of grace, or of loveliness in connection with it. 
Serene it may be, but it is a passionless serenity. It is to 
be contemj^lated, but not to be spoken to, for your regard 
is fixed upon a voiceless, sphynx-like immobilit}^ belong- 
ing more to an unsubstantial dreamland than to a real 
earth." 

The population of the Free State of the Congo, Mr. 
Stanley suggests, is about forty-five millions. This esti- 
mate, however, can only be regarded as a rough one, and 
is probably too high. According to the latest trustworthy 
calculations, the population of the whole of Africa is rep- 
resented by two hundred millions. Some j^lace it at one 
hundred and seventy millions. The data on which these 
calculations are based are, of course, imperfect, and Mr. 
Stanley's seem to have been based chiefly upon the density 
of j)opulation he found on the banks of the upper Congo. 
But in other parts, and especially away from the rivers, 
there must be large tracts of country where the jDopulation 
is much less dense than it is along the banks of tlie 
Congo, and any generalization for the whole of the country, 
based upon the latter, must manifestly give too high a 
figure. 

Of the climate of the country, Mr. Stanley is entitled 
to speak with authority, and justly, as no European has 
had a larger or so large an experience of it. The two 
chapters he has devoted to it contain a large amount of 
extremely valuable information, and will be read with 



NATUKAL PRODUCTS. 633 

interest. With care as to food, clothing, and exposure, 
Europeans, it would seem, may live as long, and eujoy as 
good health on the banks of the Congo as they may in 
most other places. But care is absolutely requisite ; with- 
out it the climate proves as hurtful as the climate of the 
west coast of Africa is generally said to be. 

As a field for commerce, Mr. Stanley speaks of the coun- 
try in the most glowing terms, and believes that it excels 
all other known lands for the number and rare variety of 
precious gifts with which nature has endowed it. Com- 
paring it with the richest portion of North America — i. e., 
with the basin of the Mississippi, previous to its develop- 
ment by modern Americans, he remarks : 

"The Congo basin is much more promising at the same 
stage of undevelopment. The forests on the banks of the 
Congo are filled with precious redwood, ligum vitse, ma- 
hogany, and fragrant gum-trees. At their base may be 
found inexhaustible quantities of fossil gum, with which 
the carriages and furniture of civilized countries are var- 
nished ; their bolqs exude myrrh and frankincense ; their 
foliage is draped with orchilla-weed, useful for dye. The 
redwood when cut dawn, chipped and rasped, produces a 
deep crimson powder, giving a valuable coloring ; the 
creepers, which hang in festoons from tree to tree, are 
generally those from which india-rubber is produced (the 
best of which is worth fifty cents per lb.) ; the nuts of the 
oil palm give forth a butter, a staple article of commerce ; 
while the fibres of others will make the best cordage. 
Among the wild shrubs is frequently found the coffee- 
plant. In its plains, jungle, and swamp luxuriate the 
elephants, whose tusk furnishes ivory worth from $2.00 to 
to $2.75 per lb. ; its waters teem with numberless herds of 
hippopotami, whose tusks are also valuable ; furs of the 
lion, leopard, monkey, otter ; hides of antelope, buffalo, 



634 CLIMATE. 

goat, cattle, etc., may also be obtained. But, what is of far 
more value, it possesses over forty millions of moderately 
industrious and workable people, which the Red Indians 
never were. And if we speak of prospective advantages and 
benefits to be derived from this late gift of nature, they 
are not much inferior in number or value to those of 
the well-developed Mississippi Valley. The Copper of Lake 
Superior is rivaled by that of the Kwilu-Niadi Valley, and 
of Bemlte. Bice, cotton, tobacco, maize, coffee, sugar, and 
wheat would thrive equally well in the broad plains of 
the Congo. This is only known after the least superficial 
examination of a limited line, which is not much over fifty 
miles wide. I have heard of gold and silver, but this state- 
ment requires corroboration, and I am not disposed to 
touch upon what I do hot personally know. 

'' For climate the Mississippi Valley is superior, but a 
large portion of the Congo basin, at present inaccessible to 
the immigrant, is blessed with a temperature under which 
Europeans may thrive and multiply. There is no portion 
of it where the European trader may noj: fix his residence 
for years, and develop commerce to his own profit with as 
little risk as is incurred in India." 

Such is the country which the skill, tact, courage, and, in 
brief, the genius of Mr. Stanley have rescued from the 
degradation and barbarism of ages, and given a place 
among the great nations of the world. It is his fame to 
have been not merely an intrepid explorer, not merely a 
peaceful and almost bloodless conqueror, but in fully equal 
measure a civilizer, a trade-bearer, a statesman ; the finder, 
the founder, and the builder of a great and mighty state. 



CHAPTEE XLV. 

EMIN, THE LAST OF THE SOUDAN HEEOES. 



ANOTHKR CALL TO DUTY— THE HISTORY OF EMIN PASHA— MR. GLADSTONE'S INFAMOrS DESERTION 
OF THE SOUDAN— EMIN'S FAITHFULNESS — CIVILIZING THE EQUATORIAL PROVINCE— NOTES ON 
LIFE IN MID-AFRICA— SUBLIMITY OF THE FORESTS— HOME MANUFACTURES IN A STATE OF 
SIEGE— COMPULSORY TEMPERANCE— TRUSTING IN GOD AFTER MAN HAD ABANDONED HIM TO 
HIS FATE. 



MR. STANLEY returned to civilization, and in 1886 
re-visited America for the first time in thirteen 
years. He was received witii the highest honors, and the 
lectures which tie delivered were attended by crowded and 
delighted audiences. It seemed at last as though he were to 
eujoy a cousiderable period of rest. He had opened up the 
Dark Continent, and founded the Congo Free State on a 
secure basis. He might now direct its operations fjom 
London or Brussels, and spend his years in well-won ease. 
But this was not to be. He was abruptly summoned to 
undertake one of the most arduous of all his tasks, in 
which he was to endeavor to right in some measure the 
infamous wrongs perpetrated a few years befoi'C in Central 
Africa by Mr. Ghidstone and the British Government. 
This task was to lead an expedition to the relief of Emin 
Pasha at Wadelai, on the Nile. To understand fully the 
situation, it will be necessary to recount some of this 
great man^s history, and the splendid yet shameful 
history of the Egyptian Soudan. 

The history of Emin Pasha, as related by his friend Dr. 
Schweinfurth, is a most romantic and noble one. His real 

635 



636 

name is Edward Schnitzer, and he was born in 1840 at 
Oppeln, in Silesia. His father, a merchant, died in 1845, 
and three years before that date the family removed to 
Neisse, where Emin's mother and sister are still living. 
When Edward Schnitzer had passed through the gymna- 
sium atNeisse he devoted himself to the study of medicine 
at the University of Breslau. During the years 1863 and 
1864 he pursued his studies at the Berlin Academy. The 
desire for adventure and an exceptional taste for natural 
sciences induced the young medical student to seek a field 
for his calling abroad. He, therefore, at the end of 1864, 
left Berlin v^ith the intention of obtaining a post of phy- 
sician in Turkey. Chance carried him to Antivari and 
then to Scutari. Here he soon managed to attract the 
attention of Valis Ismael Pasha Haggi, and was received 
into the following of that dignitary, who, in his ofiicial 
position, had to travel through the various provinces of 
the empire. When, in this way. Dr. Schnitzer had 
learned to know Armenians, Syrians, and Arabians, he 
finally reached Constantinople, where the Pasha died in 
1873. In the summer of 1875 Dr. Schnitzer returned to 
his relations in Neisse ; but after a few months the old 
passion for travel again came over him, and he betook 
himself to Egypt, where favorable prospects were opened 
out to him. With the beginning of the year 1876 he ap- 
pears as " Dr. Emin Effendi," enters the Egyptian service, 
and places himself at the disposal of the Governor-General 
of the Soudan. In the post there given him Dr. Emin 
met with Gordon, who two years before (1874) had been 
intrusted with the administration of the newly-created 
Equatorial province. Gordon was just the man to respect 
an Emin, and correctly estimate his gifts and capabilities. 
He sent him on tours of inspection through the territory 
and on repeated missions to King M'tesa at Uganda. 



emin's achievements. 637 

AVlieu Gordon Pasha, two years later, became adminis- 
trator of all territory lying outside the narrower limits of 
Egypt, Dr. Emin Effendi received the post of commander 
at Lado, together with the government of the Equatorial 
province. With how much fidelity and self-denial he 
devoted himself to his task is Avell known. 

Daring the first three years of his term he drove out 
the slave-traders from a populous region w^tli six million 
inhabitants. He converted a deficiency of revenues into 
a surplus. He conducted the government . on the lines 
marked out by General Gordon, and was equally modest, 
disinterested, and conscientious. When the Mahdi's re- 
bellion broke out, a governor-general of another stamp 
was at Khartoum. Emin's warning from the remote 
South passed unheeded. Hick's arm}^, recruited from 
Arabi's demoralized regiments, was massacred ; the Egyp- 
tian garrisons throughout the Soudan were abandoned to 
their fate ; atrocious campaigns of unnecessary bloodshed 
were fought on the seaboard, and General Gordon was 
sent to Khartoum to perish miserably while waiting for a 
relief expedition that crawled by slow stages up the Nile, 
and was too late to be of practical service. During all these 
years of stupid misgovernment and wasted blood Emin 
remained at his post. When the death of General Gor- 
don and the retreat of Lord Wolseley's army wiped out 
the last vestige of Egyptian rule in the regions of the 
Upper Nile, the Equatorial Provinces were cut off, 
neglected, and forgotten. 

It then became impossible for .Emin to communicate 
with the Egyptian Government, and he was practically 
lost to the rest of the world. He was dependent upon his 
own resources in a region encompassed by hostile tribes. 
He might easily have cut his way out to safety, by the 
way of the Congo or Zanzibar, with the best of his troops, 



638 emin's reforms. 

leaving the women and children behind to their fate. But 
this he scorned to do. He stood at his 230st, and bravely up- 
held the standard of civilization iu Africa. He had with 
him about four thousand troops at the outset. He organized 
auxiliary forces of native soldiers ; he was constantly en- 
gaged in warfare with surrounding tribes ; he garrisoned a 
dozen river stations lying long distances apart ; his ammu- 
nition ran low, and he lacked the money needed for paying 
his small army. But, in the face of manifold difficulties 
and dangers, he maintained his position, governed the 
country well, and taught the natives how to raise cotton, 
rice, indigo, and coffee, and also how to weave cloth, and 
make shoes, candles, soa]3, and many articles of commerce. 
He vaccinated the natives by the thousand, in order to 
stam]3 out small-pox ; he oiaened the first hospital known 
in that quarter; he established a regular post-route with 
forty offices ; he made important geographical discoveries 
in the basin of the Albert Lake ; and in many w^ays de- 
monstrated his capacity for governing barbarous races by 
the methods and standards of European civilization. The 
last European who visited him was Dr. Junker, the Ger- 
man traveler, who parted from him at Wadlai on January 
1st, 1886. His position was then more favorable, but he 
had been reduced at one time to extremities, his soldiers 
having escaped by a desperate sortie, cutting their way 
through the enemy after they had been many days with- 
out food, and " when the last torn leather of the last boot 
had been eaten." Letters written by him in October, 1886, 
at Wadelai, describing his geographical discoveries, 
were received in England in 1887, with a contributed 
article for a Scotch scientific journal. The provisions and 
ammunition sent to him by Dr. Junker had had a very 
encouraging effect upon his troops. He wrote: "lam 
still holding out here, and will not forsake my people." 



POWER OF PATIENCE. 639 

Emin kept a diary of his life and work, and, whenever 
opportunity offered, sent extracts from it in the form of 
letters to friends in Europe. From these a graphic idea 
may be formed of his unique career. In August, 1883, 
he wrote : 

" It seems to me that when disturbances arise among a 
newly subdued people, it is chiefly to be attributed to 
wrong methods of action on the part of our people, who 
make exaggerated demands, forgetting that a newly cap- 
tured bird must first become accustomed to its cage. 
Intercourse with negroes and their treatment are not so 
difficult as often appears to inexperienced travelers, who 
know their mendacity, and, where they have the power, 
their extortion. It only requires inexhaustible patience 
and unruffled composure — virtues which are certainly not 
often acquired from the brandy-bottle. A sojourn of 
nearly eight years here has taught me that with a little 
kind treatment, negroes are tolerably easy to govern. I 
have also certainly learnt that for equatorial Africa tem- 
perance is a good habit. . . . 

** It is a beautiful characteristic of the Sandeh — the worst 
anthropophagi of our country — that they have the greatest 
affection for their wives and daughters, and would bear 
anything rather than their loss. . . . 

" From Gambari's village, four days' march brought me 
to Tingasi, our headquarters in Monbuttu, an hour's march 
from Tangara's residence. To this place visitors from all 
sides flocked in such numbers that I was often quite over- 
whelmed. From west and south came the chiefs with 
their trains — the Sandeh princes Bori, Kanna's nephew ; 
Mbiltima and Ikva, Uando's sons ; Mbru and Massinse, 
the Monbuttu princes Tangara, Asanga, Munsa's brother ; 
Mbala, Munsa's son ; Kadabo, Benda, and others. In ad^ 
dition to these, the women, often as many as fifty or sixty, 



610 A SPLENDID LAND. 

seated on little stools, were grouped round me, all beauti- 
fully painted black, with high chignons ; those belonging 
to the princely houses, such as Munsa's and Taiigara's 
daughters, being crowned with Monbuttu hats. If only 
you could have seen the transports of delight which 
Schweiniurth's perfectly accurate drawings excited in this 
circle, and the interest with which they looked at my zo- 
ological sketches ! The Monbuttu are a very highly gifted 
people, and this would be a fertile field for happy and 
useful work. If anything is to be made of this richly 
endowed country, here or nowhere is the place for a capa- 
ble European official, who must, to be sure, possess some 
self-denial. If the Government would give the country 
over to me, independent of the Equatorial provinces 
proper, I should be quite willing to undertake the w^ork 
at once. The distance from Lado could be diminished by 
the opening of new routes. ... 

" I have been twice in Uganda, and believed I should 
meet with many persons like those in Monbuttu, but my 
expectations were not fulfilled. Monbuttu is very differ- 
ent from all that one is accustomed to see in Africa, and 
so different that a comparison can hardly be thought of. 
I was always meeting with indescribable sj)lendor and 
luxuriance of vegetation, giant trees weaving their tops 
together like a dome, more sublime and majestic than all 
the cathedrals in the w^orld. Whoever wishes to attain a 
due sense of God's majesty and power should go into 
these forests, and, silent and wondering, confess how 
miserable and contemptible are men's works beside the 
works of Him who created this enchanting beauty and 
splendor." 

Troublous times came upon him, and in August, 1884, 
he was practically cut off from the rest of the world, and 
was in daily expectation of being assailed by the over- 



IN TERKIBLE STRAITS. 641 

whelming hosts of the Mahdi. Under such circumstances 
he wrote : 

, " It will probably appear to you somewhat *comical that, 
notwithstanding the non-arrival of a steamer, I sliould 
again take up my correspondence with you. It certainly 
seems as if we Avere totally deserted and forgotten by all 
the world. But I think that the good God, who has up 
to the present time protected us from all harm, will in the 
future also have us under His protection, and so, perchance, 
my letter may some day arrive at its destination. Whilst 
suffering from the very sorrowful impression which the 
surrender of Lupton Bey to the Mahdi's troops had made 
upon me, I concluded my last letter to you in great haste. 
Dr. Junker wished to try to get to Zanzibar by the souih 
route, via Uganda, and was so good as to take with him 
all my correspondence. Since he left here nearly two 
months have passed, and as since then all kinds of curious 
rumors have reached me, he has decided to wait awhile 
in Dufile and watch the course of events. Up to the 
present, thank God, the much-feared invasion of our 
province by the Mahdi's troops has not taken place, and I 
have been able, by giving up nearly all of my outlying 
stations, to concentrate my few soldiers. ... I must, how- 
ever, tell you that I heard from Lupton that he had been 
compelled to surrender both himself and his province into 
the Mahdi's hands, and that he thought the best thing I 
could do was to follow his example." 

" Well may our friends," he wrote on New Year's Day, 
1885, '' have long since given up all hope for us ; our owm 
Government has certainly deserted us. Yet we have 
managed to hold our own, and to defend our flag. How 
long we shall still be able to do so is a mere question of 
time, for as soon as the little remaining ammunition which 
we possess is expended, it will be all up with us 



642 A CRISIS AT HAND. 

We are witliout news as to the course of events in Khar- 
toum ; in fact, the whole of the outer world seems to have 
vanished completely from our ken. We have now begun 
to manufacture for ourselves the most indispensable 
articles — very passable shoe-work, soap, and more recently 
still, cotton cloth for clothes. Candles made of wax prove 
very useful, and instead of sugar we use honey. We have 
not, however, yet succeeded in our endeavor to make vinegar, 
but I am not without hope that we shall have success in 
that direction. Temperance is naturally compulsory, for 
the drinks of native manufacture can only be consumed by 
children of the soil. Coffee, which we have long missed, 
we have at last replaced by roasting the seeds of a species, 
of hibiscus, and brewing from it a fairly passable drink ; tea 
naturally does not exist. I thank God for His protection 
hitherto, and hope and have faith enough to believe that 
He will still protect us, and at last enable my few poor 
people to return to their homes in peace. 

" lOth January. Our fate it seems is soon to be decided; 
we hear that four hundred armed men from Bahr-el- 
Ghazal have joined the rebels and that one thousand five 
hundred more are on the way. Only a miracle can save 
us. I send at once as many as possible of my people to 
the south, for the route to Mtesa is still in existence. If I 
escape I will follow with my soldiers. But I can hardly 
expect to escape. It is shameful of our Government to 
have abandoned us. 

" 12th January, Dr. Junker goes in the meantime to 
Anfinas ; he takes with him all my letters. If I see him 
again, as I hope I may, for I have some belief in my good 
star, I will write more. May God preserve you." 

The betrayal of Gordon at Khartoum by the British Gov- 
ernment had so disgusted and exasperated decent public 
opinion in England that a popular demand was made for 



RELIEF FOR EMIN. 643 

the rescue of Emin. The Government took no step other 
than to allow a small grant of money to be made from the 
Egyptian treasury. But private subscriptions furnished 
an ample sum, and an "Emin Relief Committee " was 
formed to press the long-neglected work. 



CHAPTEE XLVI. 

STANLEY TO THE RESCUE. 

BACK TO THE DARK CONTINENT— AN EXPEDITION TO SAVE LIFE, NOT TO DESTROY— FAREWELL 
CHAT AT CAIRO— THE NILE AS A HIGHWAY OF COMMERCE— HOW THE NILE MIGHT EASILY BE 
DRIED UP— PREPARATIONS AT ZANZIBAR— UP THE CONGO AGAIN— PLUNGING INTO THE WIL- 
DERNESS— CONFLICTING RUMORS- OSMAN DIGMA'S MONUMENTAL LIE— DISASTERS ON THE CONGO 
—MR. JOSEPH THOMSON'S GLOOMY FOREBODINGS. 

MR. STANLEY arrived in New York, after his 
thirteen years' absence, on November 27th, 1886. 
On December 12th of the same year he was requested by % 
the King of the Belgians to return immediately to 
Europe. He did so, and was commissioned to head the 
expedition then being formed for the relief of Emin 
Pasha. Tliere was much discussion as to the route to be 
taken, most authorities favoring that overland from Zan- 
zibar. But Mr. Stanley determined upon the Congo, and 
he described the character of the expedition as follows: 

"The expedition is non-military — that is to say, its 
purpose is not to fight, destroy, or waste ; its purpose is to 
save, to relieve distress, to carry comfort. Emin Pasha 
may be a good man, a brave officer, a gallant fellow 
deserving of a strong effort of relief, but I decline to 
believe, and I have not been able to gather from any one 
in England, an impression that his life, or the lives of 
the few hundreds under him, would overbalance the 
lives of thousands of natives, and the devastation of 
immense tracts of country which an expedition strictly 
military would naturally cause. The expedition is a 
644 



OFF FOR THE INTERIOR. 645 

mere powerful caravan, armed with rifles for the purpose 
of insuring the safe conduct of the ammunition to Emin 
Pasha, and for the more certain protection of this people 
<luring the retreat home. But it also has means of pur- 
chasing the friendship of tribes and chiefs, of buying 
food and paying its way liberally." 

Mr. Stanley went from England to Egypt, where he 
stopped for a time at Cairo, completing his arrangements 
with the Egyptian government. At the railway station, 
just before leaving for the wilderness, he had a farewell 
conversation with his friend Colonel John Colborne, a 
veteran of the Egyptian army in the Soudan. Speaking 
of some current rumors that he intended to seize Emin's 
province as a British possession, he said : " The province 
is not worth taking, at least in the present state of afliiirs. 
The difficulty of transport from either coast is too great, 
and the expense, also, to give a return for money. As long 
as the Nile is closed the Central provinces will never pay, 
and it will be years before it is open again. Yes, the 
Central African provinces would be valuable enough were 
river communication free. On the east side there is no 
sufficiently navigable river, the presence of the tsetse fly 
prevents the employment of bullocks and horses, the 
ground is unsuited for camels, and the African elephant 
has never been tamed, so the only means of transport is by 
the Wapagari, or native porters, and a precious slow and 
expensive means it is, too ; for any large trade purposes 
it would be utterly inadequate ; besides, the only present 
trade is in ivory and ebony — you know what I mean by 
that, I suppose ? and ivory is getting scarcer,. Of course, 
if the Nile were open there might be a splendid and most 
remunerative trade in gum, hides, bees-wax, india-rubber ; 
anything, too, I believe, could be cultivated to perfection 
in these provinces, and probably the natives would soon 



646 CUTTING OFF THE NILE. 

learn, when once they got to appreciate the benefit of 
trading, to grow cotton, tea, perhaps coffee, rice, and the 
chinchona plant. Some parts are suited well for one kind 
of plant, other parts for another. Thus, cotton would 
grow nearer the coasts, whereas tea and coffee and the 
chinchona plant could be cultivated on the slopes. But, 
as I said before, the true transit for trade is by the Nile." 

In the course of further conversation he said, " Do you 
know that the Nile itself could be turned off with com- 
parative ease? The Victoria Nyanza is on a plateau like 
an inverted basin. It could be made to trickle over at 
any point. The present King of Uganda is fond of his 
liquor ; waking up any morning after drinking too much 
' mwengi ' (plantain wine) over night he might have what 
is called ^ a head on him ' and feel in a very bad temper. 
He might then take it into his head to turn off the Nile ; 
he might do this by ordering a thousand or so natives to 
turn out and continue to drop stones across the Ripon 
Falls at the top till they were blocked. To do this would 
be quite possible. I calculate this could be done by the 
number of men I mention in nine months, for the falls 
are very narrow. True, the effect of this could be coun- 
teracted in a year or so by reservoirs and dykes ; but, 
meanwhile, the population of Egypt would be starved. 
His father. King Mtesa, once actually contemplated doing 
this, not with a view of creating mischief, but because he 
wanted to water some particular tract of land, and for this 
purpose to make the lake dribble over it." 

Concerning his own immediate work, Mr. Stanley talked 
at some length. *^ Tell them at home," he said, ^' that my 
mission is purely pacific. Does any one think I am going 
to wade through blood to get at Emin ? If I succeeded, 
what would be the consequence ? News would be brought 
to the King, ' Stanley is coming with an army of thirty 



THE EXPEDITION READY. 647 

thousand men ' — vou know how figures increase when 
estimated by savages — and what would be the consequence? 
* Ho ! is lie indeed ?' the King would say; 'I'll teach 
him to bring an army into my country. Chop off the 
heads of the missionaries.' And." added Mr. Stanley, 
speaking quite excitedly, "what, I should like to know, is 
the value of Emin's life in comparison with that of the 
lives of such noble men as Mackay, Lichfield, Pere Loudel, 
and Frere Delmonce ? Does any one think I would 
sacrifice them for the sake of Emin ?" 

So he was off for the Dark Continent again. On reach- 
ing Z mzibar he found that his agents had already recruited 
a force of six hundred men for the expedition, and that 
Tippu-Tib, who had escorted his caravan in 1877, when 
the first descent of the Congo was made, was waiting for 
him. Tippu-Tib was the Zobehr of the Upper Congo, 
commanding two of the best roads from the river to Wade- 
lai. He agreed to supply six hundred carriers at thirty 
dollars a man ; and as Emin was reported by Dr. Junker 
to have seventy-five tons of ivory, the expenses of the expe- 
dition might be largely defrayed by the return of the Zan- 
zibaris to the Congo with their precious loads. Tippu-Tib 
was also offered the position of Governor at Stanley Falls 
at a regular salary. He consented to accompany Mr. Stan- 
ley on these terms. The steamer set out on February 25th 
for the mouth of the Congo with about seven hundred 
men of the expedition, reaching its destination in four 
weeks. He was then twelve hundred and sixty-six miles 
from Aruwimi, whence he was to march four hundred miles 
through an unknown country to Emin's capital. It was 
as late as April 26th before he could leave Leopoldville, 
on Stanley Pool, and it was not until the second week in 
June that the explorer himself was at Aruwimi, much 
delay having been caused by defective transportation. 



648 PRESSING FORWARD. 

He left men at Stanley Falls, with instructions to 
rebuild the storehouses, to open negotiations with the 
tribes, and to provide convoys of provisions for the relief 
expedition. A rear-guard was left at Yambouya, and the 
advance column passed on to the limits of navigation, 
whence the overland march was taken up. Few difficul- 
ties were encountered apart from the natural obstacles 
presented by a country very difficult to traverse. About 
July 25th the expedition had ascended the River Aru- 
wimi as far as an elevated tract of country forming a 
portion of the Mabodi district. At this distance from its 
confluence with the Congo the river became very narrow, 
being no longer navigable, and Mr. Stanley was compelled 
for several days to have all the provisions and munitions 
for the use of the expedition, as well as those intended for 
the revictualing of Emin Pasha's garrison, carried on the 
men's backs. The quantity of rice was so large that each 
man had to bear a double burden. The rafts which had 
been employed to convey the heavy baggage were left 
behind, and only the steel whale-boat brought from the 
camp at the foot of the Aruwimi Rapids was carried past 
the narrows and again launched in the river. Mr. Stanley 
greatly congratulating himself that he had brought it, 
owing to the amount of water which, according to the 
inhabitants of that part of the country, the expedition 
would have to cross before reaching the Albert Nyanza. 
Mr. Stanley calculated that once arrived at the summit of 
the table-lands which shape the basin of the Aruwimi he 
would be able to halt for two days, in order to rest his men 
and establish a fresh camp, garrisoned like that at Yam- 
bouya, by twenty men and a European officer. The popu- 
lation of the country through which Mr. Stanley was then 
traveling was considerable, but the people were much 
scattered. The district was tranquil, the agitation preva- 



INTO THE WILDERNESS. 649 

lent in the neighborhood of Stanley Falls not having 
spread to that part of the country. 

At the beginning of August the expedition was re- 
ported to be advancing without the ammunition and stores 
designed for Emin. Provisions were scarce, the officers 
and men undergoing great privations and suffering from 
disease and hunger. Tippu-Tib had failed to send to 
Yambouya the five hundred carriers who were to convey 
the stores. This failure was not due to treachery, since 
he was still at his post and faithful to Mr. Stanley's 
interests. In consequence of the disturbed state of the 
country, he could not, as . had been agreed upon, organize 
a revictualling caravan to be dispatched direct to tlie 
Albert Nyanza by the way of the River Mbourou, but he 
agreed to do so as soon as possible. The agitation con- 
tinued in the country between Stanley Falls and the con- 
fluence of the Aruwimi with the Congo. Several villages 
on the right bank of the Congo had been pillaged and 
laid waste, and a large number of the natives had crossed 
the river to the opposite bank. 

Thus, Mr. Stanley and his comrades plunged into the 
wilderness, and were lost to the sight of the world. From 
time to time thereafter countless rumors came from Africa 
regarding them, rumors varied in tone as in number. At 
one time they had reached Emin in safety. Again they were 
all massacred long before they got to Wadelai. Now, Mr. 
Stanley had put himself at the head of Emin's army and 
was marching on Khartoum to avenge Gordon and over- 
throw the Mahdi ; and then he and Emin were captured 
by the Mahdist forces at Lado. Stories came of a mys- 
terious " White Pasha " who was leading a conquering 
army through the Bahr Gazelle country, and it was very 
generally believed that it was Mr. Stanley, who had 
reached Wadelai and was returning to the coast by the 



650 A MAHDI LETTEK. 

way of the Niger. But on December 15th, 1888, startling 
news came from Suakim, on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. 
Osman Digna, the Frenchman who had turned Arab and 
was leader of the Mahdist army there, under a flag of 
truce informed the British commander that Emin's prov- 
ince had fallen into Arab hands, and that Emin and 
Stanley were prisoners. In proof of this he sent a copy of 
a letter just received from a Mahdist officer in the Soudan, 
as follows : 

" In the name of the Great God, etc. This is from 
the least among God's servants to his Master and Chief 
Khalifa, etc. We proceeded with the steamers and army. 
Keached the town Lado, where Emin, Mudir of Equator, 
is staying. We reached this place 5th Safar, 1306. We 
must thank officers and men who made this conquest easy 
to us before our arrival. They caught Emin and a 
traveler staying with him, and put both in chains. The 
officers and men refused to go to Egypt with the Turks. 
Tewfik sent Emin one of the travelers, whose name is 
Mr. Stanley. This Mr. Stanley brought with him a 
letter from Tewfik to Emin, dated 8th Jemal Aowal, 
1301, No. 81, telling Emin to come with Mr. Stanley, 
and gave the rest of the force the option to go to Cairo or 
remain. The force refused the Turkish orders, and gladly 
received us. I found a great deal of feathers and ivory. 
I am sending with this, on board the ^ Bordain,' the 
officers and chief clerk. I am also sending the letter 
which came to Emin from Tewfik, with the banners we 
took from the Turks. I heard that there is another 
traveler who came to Emin, but I heard that he returned. 
I am looking out for him. If he comes back again, I 
am sure to catch him. All the chiefs of the province 
with the inhabitants were delighted to receive us. I 
have taken all the arms and ammunition. Please return 



GLOOMY SPECULATIONS. 651 

the oflficers and chief clerk when you have seen them and 
given the necessary instructions, because they will be of 
great use to me." 

This was accompanied by what appeared to be a letter 
written by the Khedive at Cairo to Emin, which had been 
intrusted to Mr. Stanley to deliver, and this convinced 
many of the truth of Osman Digna's story. But, as a 
matter of fact, as will be seen later, it was all an ingenious 
lie, concocted for the purpose of frightening the British 
into abandoning Suakim to the slave-traders. Meantime 
there was true news of actual disasters on the Congo. 
Major Barttelot, commanding the rear guard of the expe- 
dition, was murdered ; and Mr. Jamieson, who succeeded 
to the command, died of fever. Under these circum- 
stances, the gloomiest and most anxious views prevailed 
regarding Mr. Stanley's fate. That famous and experi- 
enced African traveler, Mr. Joseph Thomson, expressed 
the opinion that the whole expedition had been annihi- 
lated. " Stanley," he said, " has met his terrible fate in 
some such way as this : He started from the Aruwimi, 
and almost immediately plunged into dense forests, to be 
made worse by swamps further east. Through such a 
eountry his caravan would have to travel in single file, 
with probably no more than twenty men in sight at one 
time. Under such conditions it would be impossible for 
the Europeans to keep in touch with their men, and thus 
scattered, thus without ofl&cers in a sense, they would fight 
at a terrible disadvantage. And fight they would have to 
for daily food if nothing else, and consequently with each 
succeeding week less able to continue the struggle. In 
this way they plunged deeper and deeper into the recesses 
of the * unknown forest and swamp — and deeper and 
deeper, no doubt, into the heart of a powerful tribe of 
natives. And then the end came. Probably in that last 
struggle for life not a soul escaped. 



652 THE DARKEST HOURS. 

" If you ask me why no news, no rumor of that catas- 
trophe leaked out, I answer because there was no trade, 
not even a slave route, through that region. There was no 
native or Arab merchant to carry the news from tribe to 
tribe ; and as each tribe has little but fighting relations 
with the neighboring ones, the tidings would not get 
through by their means. And, after all, what would the 
massacre of a passing caravan be to those savages ? Only 
a common incident not worth speaking about beside the 
continual tribal wars they are accustomed to. The one* 
thing they would find to remark would be the wonderful 
character of the plunder. Some day, no doubt, the news 
will leak out, but it may be months before anything 
reaches us. It is not much use crying over spilt milk, but 
one cannot help lamenting over this probable new disaster. 
It is all so much on a par with our terrible blunderings in 
the Soudan and East Africa. Only another remarkable 
man killed, and the magnificent life's work of another 
ruined. But for the selection of the Congo route Stanley 
might have been alive, Emin succoured, and not improba- 
bly the Mahdi's host defeated." 

These were weighty words, coming from so eminent an 
authority, and they carried conviction to the hearts of 
many. Mr. Thomson's utterances, and Osman. Digna's 
lying tale, were made public on the same day, December 
18th, 1888. That was the darkest hour in the history of 
the whole enterprise ; but it was very close before the 
dawn. 



CHAPTER XLVIL 

MARCHING THROUGH AN INFERNO. 

STANLEY REACHES EMIN— HIS STORY OF THE JOURNEY— MOLESTED AT THE START— 4. TERRIEIC 
MARCH— HEAVY LOSSES— MEN CORRUPTED BY THE ARABS— NAKED AND STARVING— A LAND 
OF DESOLATION— PUNISHING MUTINEERS— OUT OF THE WOODS— FIRST VIEW OF THE PROMISED 
LAND— MORE EN^HES- A PARLEY— FIGHTING THEIR WAY— ON THE SHORE OF ALBERT 
NYANZA AT LAST— DOUBTFUL FRIENDS— MARCHING BACK FOR HELP AND SUPPLIES. 

IT was on December 18th, 1888, that the dark views 
quoted in the preceding chapter were published to 
the world. But less than ten days later positive and 
authentic news of Mr. Stanley's safe arrival at Emin 
Pasha's capital was received, and on April 3d, 1889, full 
details of the campaign, written by Mr. Stanley himself, 
were published. His letter to the chairman of the Emin 
Pasha Relief Committee was dated at Bungangeta Island, 
Ituri or Aruwimi River, August 28th, 1888, and ran as 
follows : 

"A short dispatch briefly announcing that we had 
placed the first installment of relief in the hands of Emin 
Pasha on the Albert Nyanza was sent to you by couriers 
trom Stanley Falls, along Avith letters to Tippu-Tib, the 
Arab governor of that district, on the 17th ihst , within 
three hours of our meeting with the rear column of the 
expedition. I propose to relate to you the story of our 
movements since June 28th, 1887. 

" I had established an intrenched and palisaded camp 
at Yambuya, on the Lower Aruwimi, just below the first 
rapids. Major Edmund Barttelot, being senior of these 

653 



654 Stanley's eepokt. 

officers with me, was appointed commandant. Mr. J. S. 
Jamieson, a volunteer, was associated with him. On the 
arrival of all men and goods from Bolobo and Stanley 
Pool, the officers still believed Messrs. Troup, Ward, and 
Eonny were to report to Major Barttelot for duty. But no 
important action or movement (according to letter of 
instructions given by me to the Major before leaving) was 
to be made without consulting with Messrs. Jamieson, 
Troup, and Ward. The columns under Major Barttelot's 
orders mustered two hundred and fifty-seven men. 

*^As I requested the Major to send you a copy of the 
instructions issued to each officer, you are doubtless aware 
that the Major was to remain at Yambuya until the arrival 
of the steamer from Stanley Pool with the officers, men, 
and goods left behind ; and if Tippu-Tib's promised con- 
tingent of carriers had in the meantime arrived, he was to 
march his column and follow our track, which so long as 
it traversed the forest region would be known by the blaz- 
ing of the trees, by our camps and zaribas, etc. If Tip- 
pu-Tib's carriers did not arrive, then, if he (the Major) 
preferred moving on to staying at Yambuya, he was to 
discard such things as mentioned in letter of instructions, 
and commence making double and trij^le journeys by short 
stages, until I should come down from the Nyanza and 
relieve him. The instructions were explicit and, as the 
officers admitted, intelligible. 

" The advance column, consisting of three hundred and 
eighty-nine officers and men, set out from Yambuya June 
28th, 1887. The first day we followed the river bank, 
marched twelve miles, and arrived in the large district of 
Yankonde. At our approach the natives set fire to their 
villages, and, under cover of the smoke, attacked the pio- 
neers who were clearing the numerous obstructions they 
had planted before the first village. The skirmish lasted 



POISONED AKKOWS. 655 

fifteen minutes. Tlie second day we followed a path lead- 
ing inland but trending east. We followed this path for 
five days through a dense population. Every art known 
to native minds for molesting, impeding, and wounding an 
enemy was resorted to; but we passed through without 
the loss of a man. Perceiving that the path was taking us 
too far from our course, we cut a northeasterly track, and 
reached the river again on the 5th of July. From this 
date until the 18th of October we followed the left bank 
of the Aruwimi. After seventeen days' continuous march- 
ing we halted one day for rest. On the twenty-fourth day 
from Yambuya we lost two men by desertion. In the 
month of July we made four halts only. On the 1st of 
August the first death occurred, which was from dysentery; 
so that for thirty-four days our course had been singularly 
successful. But as we now entered a wilderness, which 
occupied us nine days in marching through it, our suffer- 
ings began to multiply, and several deaths occurred. The 
river at this time was of great use to us ; our boat and 
several canoes relieved the wearied and sick of their loads, 
so that progress, though not brilliant as during the first 
month, was still steady. 

'* On the 13th of August we arrived at Air-Sibba. The 
natives made a bold front ; we lost five men through 
poisoned arrows ; and to our great grief. Lieutenant Stairs 
was wounded just below the heart ; but, though he suf- 
fered greatly for nearly a month, he finally recovered. On 
the 15th Mr. Jephson, in command of the land party, led 
his men inland, became confused, and lost his way. We 
were not re-united until the 21st. 

" On the 25th of August we arrived in the district of 
Air-jeli. Opposite our camp was the mouth of the tribu- 
tary Nepoko. 

" On the 31st of August we met for the first time a party 



656 DESERTIONS. 

of Manyema, belonging to the caravan of Ugarrowwa, 
alias Uledi Balyuz, who turned out to be a former tent- 
boy of Speke's. Our misfortunes began from this date, for 
I had taken the Congo route to avoid Arabs, that they 
might not tamper with my men, and tempt them to desert 
by their presents. Twenty-six men deserted within three 
days of this unfortunate meeting. 

" On the 16th of September we arrived at a camp op- 
posite the station at Ugarrowwa's. As food was very scarce^ 
owitig to his having devastated an immense region, w^e 
halted but one day near him. Such friendly terms as I could 
make with such a man I made, and left fifty-six men with 
him. All the Somalis preferred to rest at Ugarrowwa's to 
the continuous marching. Five Soudanese were also left. 
It would have been certain death for all of them to have 
accompanied us. At Ugarrowwa's they might possibly re- 
cover. Five dollars a month per head was to be paid to 
this man for their food. 

'*On September 18th, we left Ugarrowwa's, and on the 
18th of October entered the settlement occupied by Kil- 
inga-Longa, aZanzibari slave belonging to Abed bin Salim, 
an old Arab, whose bloody deeds are recorded in ^ The 
Congo and the Founding of its Free State.' This proved 
an awful month to us; not one member of the expedition, 
white or black, will ever forget it. The advance numbered 
two hundred and seventy-three souls on leaving Ugar- 
rowwa's, because out of three hundred and eighty we had 
lost sixty-six men by desertion and death between Yam- 
buya and Ugarrowwa's, and had left fifty-six men sick at the 
Arab station. On reaching Kilinga-Longa's we discovered 
we had lost fifty-five men by starvation and desertion. 
We had lived principally on wild fruit, fungi, and a large, 
flat, bean-shaped nut. The slaves of Abed bin Salim did 
their utmost to ruin the expedition. Short of open hos- 



BETTER PROSPECTS. 657 

tilities, they purchased rifles, ammunition, clothing, so that 
yfhen we left their station we were beggared, and our men 
were absolutely naked. We were so weak physically that 
we were uuable to carry the boat and about seventy loads 
of goods; we therefore left these goods and boat at Kil- 
inga-Longa's under Surgeon Parke and Captain Nelson, 
the latter of whom was unable to march, and after twelve 
days' march we arrived at a native settlement called 
Ibwiri. Between Kilinga-Longa's and Ibwiri our condi- 
tion had not improved. The Arab devastation had reached 
within a few miles of Ibwiri — a devastation so complete 
that there was not one native hut standing between Ugar- 
rowwa's and Ibwiri, and what liad not been destroyed by 
the slaves of Ugarrowwa and Abed bin Salim the ele- 
phants had destroyed, and turned the whole region into a 
horrible wilderness. But at Ibwiri we were beyond the 
utmost reach of the destroyers ; we were on virgin soil in 
a populous region abounding with food. Our suffering 
from hunger, which began on the 31st of August, termi- 
nated on the 12th of November. Ourselves and men 
were skeletons. Out of three hundred and eighty-nine we 
now only numbered one hundred and seventy-four, several 
of whom seemed to have no hope of life left. A halt was 
therefore ordered for the people to recuperate. Hitherto 
our people were skeptical of what we told them, the suffer- 
ing had been so awful, calamities so numerous, the forest 
so endless apparently, that they refused to believe that by 
and by we should see plains and cattle and the Nyanza 
and the white man, Em in Pasha. We felt as though we 
were dragging them along with a chain around our necks. 
* Beyond these' raiders lies a country untouched, where 
food is abundant and where you will forget your miseries, 
so cheer up, boys ; be men, press on a little faster.' They 
turned a deaf ear to our prayers and entreaties, for, driven 



658 RECUPERATED. 

by hunger and suffering, they sold their rifles and equip- 
ments for a few ears of Indian corn, deserted with the 
ammunition, and were altogether demoralized. Perceiving 
that prayers and entreaties and mild punishments were of 
no avail, I then resorted to visit upon the wretches the 
death penalty. Two of the worst cases were accordingly 
taken and hung in presence of aU. 

*' We halted thirteen days in Ibwiri, and reveled on 
fowls, goats, bananas, corn, sweet potatoes, yams, beans^ 
etc. The supplies were inexhaustible, and the people 
glutted themselves ; the effect was such that I had a hun- 
dred and seventy -three — one was killed by an arrow — 
mostly sleek and robust men, when I set out for the 
Albert Nyanza on the 24th of November. 

" There were still a hundred and twenty-six miles from 
the lake; but, given food, such a distance seemed nothing. 

" On the 1st of December we sighted the open country 
from the top of a ridge connected with Mount Pisgah,. 
so named from our first view of the land of promise and 
plenty. On the 5th of December we emerged upon the 
plains, and the deadly gloomy forest was behind us. 
After a hundred and sixty days of continuous gloom we 
saw the light of broad day shining all around us, and 
making all things beautiful. We thought we had never 
seen grass so green or country so lovely. The men liter- 
ally yelled and leaped with joy, and raced over the ground 
with their burdens. Ah ! this was the old spirit of former 
expeditions successfully completed all of a sudden re- 
vived ! 

" Woe betide the native aggressor we may meet, however 
powerful he may be ; with such a spirit the men will fling 
themselves like wolves on sheep. Numbers will not be 
considered. It had been the eternal forest that had made 
the abject, slavish creatures, so brutally plundered by 
Arab slaves at Kilonga-Longa's. 



BATTLE PENDING. 659 

" On the 9th we came to the country of the powerful 
chief Mozaniboni. Tlie villages were scattered over a 
great extent of country so thickly that there was no other 
road except through their villages or fields. From a long 
distance the natives had sighted us and were prepared. 
We seized a hill as soon as we arrived in the centre of a 
mass of villages about 4 p. m. on the 9th of December and 
occupied it, building a zariba as fast as bill-hooks could 
cut brushwood. The war cries were terrible from hill to 
hill, they were sent pealing across the intervening valleys,, 
the people gathered by hundreds from every point, war- 
horns and drums announced that a struggle was about to 
take place. Such natives as were too bold we checked 
with but little effort, and a slight skirmish ended in us 
capturing a cow, the first beef tasted since we left the 
ocean. The night passed peacefully, both sides preparing 
for the morrow. On the morning of the 10th we attempted 
to open negotiations. The natives were anxious to know 
who we were, and we were anxious to glean news of the 
land that threatened to ruin the expedition. Hours were 
passed talking, both ]3arties keeping a respectable distance 
apart. The natives said they were subject to Uganda; but 
that Kabba-Rega was their real King, Mozamboni holding 
the country for Kabba-Kega. They finally accepted cloth 
and brass rods to show their King Mozamboni, and his 
answer was to be given next day. In the meantime all 
hostilities were to be suspended. 

"The morning of the 11th dawned, and at 8 a.m. we 
were startled at hearing a man proclaiming that it was 
Mozamboni's wish that we should be driven back from 
the land. The proclamation was received by the valley 
around our neighborhood with deafening cries. Their 
word ' kanwana,' signifies to make peace, ' kurwana ' sig- 
nifies war. We were therefore in doubt, or rather we 



660 SHARP FIGHTING. 

hoped we had heard wrongly. We sent an interpreter a 
little nearer to ask if it was kanwana or kurwana. Kur- 
wana, they responded, and to emphasize the term two 
arrows were shot at him, which dissipated all doubt. Our 
hill stood between a lofty range of hills and a lower range. 
On one side of us was a narrow valley two hundred and 
fifty yards wide ; on the other side the valley was three 
miles wide. East and west of us the valley broadened into 
an extensive plain. The higher range of hills was lined 
with hundreds preparing to descend ; the broader valley 
was already mustering its hundreds. There was no time 
to lose. A body of forty men were sent, under Lieutenant 
Stairs, to attack the broader valley. Mr. Jephson was sent 
with thirty men east ; a choice body of sharpshooters was 
sent to test the courage of those descending the slope of 
the highest range. Stairs pressed on, crossed a deep and 
narrow river in the face of hundreds of natives, and assaulted 
the first village and took it. The sharpshooters did their 
work effectively, and drove the descending natives rapidly 
up the slope until it became a general flight. Meantime, 
Mr. Jephson was not idle. He marched straight up the 
valley east, driving the people back, and taking their vil- 
lages as he went. By 3 p. m. there was not a native visible 
anywhere, except on one small hill about a mile and a 
half west of us. 

" On the morning of the 12th we continued our march; 
during the day we had four little fights. On the 13th 
marched straight east ; attacked by new forces every hour 
until noon, when we halted for refreshments. These we 
successfully overcame. 

"At 1 p. M. we resumed our march. Fifteen minutes later 
I cried out, ' Prepare yourself for a sight of the Nyanza.' 
The men murmured and doubted, and said, 'Why 
does the master continually talk to us in this way? 



THE DESCJ^NT BEGUN. 661 

^yanza, indeed ! Is not this a plain, and can we not see 
mountains at least four days' march ahead of us/ At 1.30 
p. M. the Albert Nyanza was below them. Now it was my 
turn to jeer and scoff at the doubters, but as I was about 
to ask them what they saw, so many came to kiss my 
hands and beg my pardon, that I could not say a word. 
This was my reward. The mountains, they said, were the 
mountains of Unyoro, or rather its lofty plateau wall. 
Kavali, the objective point of the expedition, was six 
miles from us as the crow flies. 

" We were at an altitude of five thousand two hundred 
feet above the sea. The Albert Nyanza was over two 
thousand nine hundred below us. We stood in 1° 1^0' N. 
lat. ; the south end of the Nyanza lay largely mapped 
about six miles south of this position. Right across to the 
•eastern shore every dent in its low, flat shore was visible, 
and traced like a silver snake on a dark ground was the 
tributary Laniliki, flowing into the Albert from the south- 
w^est. 

" After a short halt to enjoy the prospect, we commenced 
the rugged and stony descent. Before the rear-guard had 
descended one hundred feet, the natives of the plateau we 
had just left poured after them. Had they shown as much 
€Ourage and perseverance on the j)l^iii as they now ex- 
hibited, we might have been seriously delayed. The rear- 
guard was kept very busy until within a few hundred feet 
of the Nyanza plain. We camped at the foot of the 
plateau wall, the aneroids readings two thousand fiYe hun- 
dred feet above sea-level. A night attack was made on us, 
but our sentries sufiicecl to drive these natives away. 

" At 9 A. M. of the 14th we approached the village of 
Kakongo, situate at the southwest corner of the Albert 
Lake. Three hours were spent by us attempting to make 
friends. We signally failed. They would not allow us to 



662 NEW DIFFICULTIES. 

go to the lake, because we might frighten their cattle. 
They would not exchange blood-brotherhood with us, be- 
cause they never heard of any good people coming from 
the west side of the lake. They would not accept any 
present from us, because they did not know who we were. 
They would give us water to drink, and they would show 
us our road up to Nyam Sassic. But from these singular 
people we learned that they had heard there was a white 
man at Unyoro, but they had never heard of any white 
men being on the west side, nor had they seen any steam- 
ers on the lake. There were no canoes to be had, except 
such as would hold the men, etc. 

" There was no excuse for quarreling ; the people were 
civil enough, but they did not want us near them. We 
therefore were shown the path and followed it a few miles, 
when we camped about half a mile from the lake. We 
began to consider our position, with the light thrown upon 
it by the conversation with the Kakongo natives. My 
couriers from Zanzibar had evidently not arrived, or, I 
presume, Emin Pasha with his two steamers would have 
paid the southwest side of the lake a visit to prepare the 
natives for our coming. My boat was at Kilonga-Longa^s,^ 
one hundred and ninety miles distant. There was no 
canoe obtainable, and to seize a canoe without the excuse 
of a quarrel my conscience would not permit. There wa& 
no tree anywhere of a size to make canoes. Wadelai was 
a terrible distance off for an expedition so reduced as ours. 
We had used five cases of cartridges in five days of fight- 
ing on the plain. A month of such fighting must exhaust 
our stock. There was no plan suggested which seemed 
feasible to me, except that of retreating to Ibwiri, build a 
fort, send a party back to Kilonga-Longa's for our boat^ 
store up every load in the fort not conveyable, leave a 
garrison in the fort to hold it^ and raise corn for us ; march 



ONE MAN KILLED. 663 

back again to the Albert Lake, and send the boat to search 
for Emin Pasha. This was the plan which, after lengthy- 
discussions with my officers, I resolved upon. 

" On the 15th we inarched to the site of Kavali, on the 
west side of the lake. Kavali had years ago been destroyed. 
At 4 p. M. the Kakongo natives had followed us and shot 
several arrows into our bivouac, and disappeared as quickly 
as they came. At 6 p. m. we began a night march, and by 
10 A.M. of the 16th we had gained the crest of the plateau 
once more, Kakongo natives having persisted in following 
us up the slope of the plateau. We had one man killed 
and one wounded." 



CHAPTEE XL VIII. 

STANLEY AND EMIN. 

STANLEY PROSTRATED WITH FEVER— AMONG FRIENDS— A LETTER FROM EMIN— ON THE NYANZA 
—MEETING WITH EMIN— BACK THROUGH THE WILDERNESS— LEARNINGOF DISASTERS— A MEAGRE 
WARDROBE— THE GREAT EQUATORIAL FORESTS — A NAMELESS MOUNTAIN — DISCUSSING 
EMIN'S CONDITION— EMIN'S DETERMINATION TO STICK TO THE POST OF DUTY. 

^'HD Y January 7th we were in Ibwiri once again, and 
-U after a few clays' rest Lieutenant Stairs, with a hun- 
dred men, sent to Kilonga-Longa's to bring the boat and 
goods up, also Surgeon Parke and Captain Nelson. Out of 
the thirty-eight sick in charge of the officers, only eleven 
men were brought to the fort, the rest had died or deserted. 
On the return of Stairs with the boat and goods he was 
sent to Ugarrowwa's to bring up the convalescents there. 
I granted him thirty-nine days' grace. Soon after his de- 
parture I was attacked with gastritis and an abscess on 
the arm, but after a month's careful nursing by Dr. Parke 
I recovered, and forty-seven days having expired, I set 
out again for the Albert Nyanza, April 2d, accompanied 
by Messrs. Jephson and Parke. Captain Nelson, now re- 
covered, was appointed commandant of Fort Bodo in our 
absence, with a garrison of forty-three men and boys. 

" On April 26th we arrived in Mozamboni's country 
once again, but this time, after solicitation, Mozamboni 
decided to make blood-brotherhood with me. Though I 
had fifty rifles less with me on this second visit, the ex- 
ample of Mozamboni was followed by all the other chiefs 
664 



EMIN FOUND. 665 

as far as the Nyanza, and every difficulty seemed removed. 
Food was supplied gratis ; cattle, goats, sheep, and fowls 
were also given in such abundance that our people lived 
royally. One day's march from the Nyanza the natives 
came from Kavali, and said that a white man named 
'Malejja' had given their chief a black packet to give to 
me, his son. Would I follow them ? ' Yes, to-morrow,' I 
answered, 'and if your words are true I will make you 
rich.' 

" They remained with us that night, telling us wonderful 
stories about 'big ships as large as islands filled with men,' 
etc., which left no doubt in our mind that this white man 
was Emin Pasha. The next day's march brought us to 
the chief Kavali, and after a while he handed me a note 
from Emin Pasha, covered with a strip of black Amer- 
ican oil-cloth. The note was to the effect ' that as there had 
been a native rumor to the effect that a white man had 
been seen at the south end of the lake, he had gone in his 
steamer to make inquiries, but had been unable to obtain 
reliable information, as the natives were terribly afraid of 
Kabba-Pega, King of Unyoro, and connected every stran- 
ger with him. However, the wife of the Nyamsassie chief 
had told a native ally of his named Mogo that she had 
seen us in Mrusuma (Mozamboni's country). He therefore 
begged me to remain where I was until he could commu- 
nicate with me.' The note was signed ' (Dr.) Emin,' and 
dated March 26th. 

" The next day, April 23d, Mr. Jephson was dispatched 
with a strong force of men to take the boat to the Nyanza. 
On the 26th the boat's crew sighted Mswa station, the 
southernmost belonging to Emin Pasha, and Mr. Jephson 
was there hospitably received by the Egyptian garrison. 
The boat's crew say that they were embraced one by one, 
and that they never had such attention shown to them as 
by these men, who hailed them as brothers. 



666 WITH EMIN PASHA. 

" On the 29th of April we once again reached the 
bivouac ground occupied by us on the 16th of December, 
and at 5 p.m. of that day I saw the Khedive steamer about 
seven miles away steaming up toward us. Soon after 
7 P. M. Emin Pasha and Signor Casati and Mr. Jephson 
arrived at our camp, where they were heartily welcomed 
by all of us. 

" The next day we moved to a better camping-place, 
about three miles above Nyamsassie, and at this spot 
Emin Pasha also made his camp ; we were together until 
the 25th of May. . On that day I left him, leaving Mr. 
Jephson, three Soudanese, and two Zahzibaris in his care, 
and in return he caused to accompany me three of his irre- 
gulars and one hundred and two Madi natives as porters. 

" Fourteen days later I was at Fort Bodo. At the fort 
were Captain Nelson and Lieutenant Stairs. The latter 
had returned from Ugarrowwa's twenty-two days after I 
had set out for the lake, April 2d, bringing with him, 
alas ! only sixteen men out of fifty-six. All the rest were 
dead. My twenty couriers whom I had sent with letters to 
Major Barttelot had safely left Ugarrowwa's for Yam- 
buy a on March 16th. 

" Fort Bodo was in a flourishing state. Nearly ten 
acres were under cultivation. One crop of Indian corn 
had been harvested, and was in the granaries ; they had 
just commenced planting again. 

" On the 16th of June I left Fort Bodo with a hundred 
and eleven Zanzibaris and a hundred and one of Emin 
Pasha's people. Lieutenant Stairs had been appointed 
commandant of the fort. Nelson second in command, and 
Surgeon Parke medical officer. The garrison consisted of 
fifty-nine rifles. I had thus deprived myself of all my 
officers in order that I should not be encumbered with 
baggage and provisions and medicines, which would have 



SAD NEWS. 667 

to be taken if accompanied by Europeans, and every car- 
rier was necessary for the vast stores left with Major Bart- 
telot. On the 24th of June we reached Kilonga-Longa's, 
and July 19th Ugarrowwa's. The latter station was de- 
serted. Ugarrowwa, having gathered as much ivory as 
he could obtain from that district, had proceeded down 
river about three months before. On leaving Fort Bodo I 
Jiad loaded every carrier with about sixty pounds of corn, 
so that we had been able to pass through the wilderness 
unscathed. 

" Passing on down river as fast as we could go, dail}'' 
expecting to meet the couriers who had been stimulated to 
exert themselves for a reward of ten pounds per head, or 
the Major himself leading an army of carriers, we indulged 
ourselves in these pleasing anticipations as we neared the 
goal. 

" On the 10th of August we overtook Ugarrowwa with 
an immense flotilla of fifty-seven canoes, and to our won- 
der our couriers now reduced to seventeen. They related 
an awful story of hair-breadth escapes and tragic scenes. 
Three of their number had been slain, two were still feeble 
from their wounds, all except GiYe bore on their bodies the 
scars of arrow wounds. 

" A week later, on August 17th, we met the rear column 
•of the expedition at a place called Bunalya, or, as the 
Arabs have corrujDted it, Unary a. There was a white 
man at the gate of the stockade whom I at first thought 
was Mr. Jamieson, but a nearer view revealed the features 
of Mr. Bonny, who left the medical service of the army to 
accompany us. 

" ' Well, my dear Bonny, where is the Major ?' 

" ' He is dead, sir ; shot by the Manyuema about a 
month ago.' 

" ' Good God ! And Mr. Jamieson ? ' 



668 DISASTER, DESERTION, DEATH. 

" ^ He has gone to Stanley Falls to try and get some^ 
more men from Tippu-Tib.' 

^'^ And Mr. Troup?' 

" ' Mr. Troup has gone home, sir, invalided.' 

"^Hem! well, where is Ward?' 

" * Mr. Ward is at Bangala, sir.' 

" ^ Heavens alive ! then you are the only one here V 

" ' Yes, sir.' 

^' I found the rear column a terrible wreck. Out of two 
hundred and fifty-seven men there were only seventy-one 
remaining. Out of seventy-one only fifty-two on muster- 
ing them, seemed fit for service, and these mostly were 
scarecrows. The advance had performed the march from 
Yambuya to Bunalya in sixteen days, despite native oppo- 
sition. The rear column performed the same distance in 
forty-three days. According to Mr. Bonny, during the 
thirteen months and twenty days that had elapsed since I 
had left Yambuya, the record is only one of disaster, 
desertion, and death. I have not the heart to go into the 
details, many of which are incredible, and, indeed, I have 
not the time, for, excepting Mr. Bonny, I have no one to 
assist me in re-organizing the expedition. There are still 
far more loads than I can carry, at the same time articles 
needful are missing. For instance, I left Yambuya with 
only a short campaigning kit, leaving my reserve of cloth- 
ing and personal effects in charge of the ofiicers. In 
December some deserters from the advance column 
reached Yambuya to spread the report that I was dead. 
They had no papers with them, but the officers seemed to 
accept the report of these deserters as a fact, and in Janu- 
ary Mr. Ward, at an officers' mess meeting, proposed that 
my instructions should be canceled. The only one who 
appears to have dissented was Mr. Bonny. Accordingly, 
my personal kit, medicines, soap, candles, and provisions 



TREATED AS DEAD. 669 

were sent down the Congo as ' superfluities !' Thus, after 
making this immense personal sacrifice to relieve them and 
cheer them up, I find myself naked and deprived of even 
the necessaries of life in Africa. But, strange to say, they 
have kept two hats and four pairs of boots, a flannel 
jacket, and I propose to goback toEmin Pasha and across 
Africa with this truly African kit. Livingstone, poor 
fellow, was all in patches when I met him, but it will be 
the reliever himself who will be in patches this time. 
Fortunately not one of my officers will envy me, for their 
kits are intact — it was only myself that was dead. 

" I pray you to say that we were only eighty-two days 
from the Albert Lake to Banalya, and sixty-one from 
Fort Bodo. The distance is not very great — it is the peo- 
ple who fail one. Going to Nyanza we felt as though we 
had the tedious task of dragging them ; on returning each 
man knew the road, and did not need any stimulus. Be- 
tween the Nyanza and here we only lost three men — one 
of which was by desertion. I brought a hundred and 
thirty-one Zanzibaris here, and left fifty-nine at Fort 
Bodo, total one hundred and ninety men out of three 
hundred and eighty-nine ; loss, fifty per cent. At Yam- 
buya I left two hundred and fifty-seven men, there are only 
seventy-one left, ten of whom will never leave this camp 
— loss over two hundred and seventy per cent. This 
proves that, though the sufferings of the advance \^ere un- 
precedented, the mortality was not so great as in camp at 
Yambuya. The survivors of the march are all robust, 
while the survivors of the rear column are thin and most 
unhealthy-looking. 

" I have thus rapidly sketched out our movements since 
June 28th, 1887. I wish I had the leisure to furnish more 
details, but I cannot find the time. I write this amid the 
hurry and bustle of departure, and amid constant inter- 



670 EXTENSIVE FORESTS. 

ruptions. You will, however, have gathered from this 
letter an idea of the nature of the country traversed by us. 
We were a hundred and sixty days in the forest — one 
€ontinuous, unbroken, compact forest. The grass-land 
was traversed by us in eight days. The limits of the 
forest along the edge of the grass-land are well marked. 
We saw it extending northeasterly, with its curves and 
bays and capes just like a sea-shore. Southwesterly it pre- 
served the same character. North and south the forest area 
extends from Nyangwe to the southern borders of the 
Monbuttu ; east and west it embraces all from the Congo, 
at the mouth of the Aruwimi, to about east longitude 29° 
—40°. How far west beyond the Congo the forest reaches 
I do not know. The superficial extent of the tract thus 
described — totally covered by forest — is two hundred and 
forty-six thousand square miles. North of the Congo, be- 
tween Upoto and the Aruwimi, the forest embraces another 
twenty thousand square miles. 

" Between Yambuya and the Nyanza we came across 
five distinct languages. The last is that which is spoken 
by the Wanyoro, Wanyankori, Wanya, Ruanda, Wahha, 
and people of Karangwe and Ukerewe. 

" The land slopes gently from the crest of the plateau 
above the Nyanza down to the Congo E-iver from an alti- 
tude of five thousand five hundred feet to one thousand 
four hundred feet above the sea. North and south of our 
track through the grass-land the face of the land was much 
broken by groups of cones or isolated mounts or ridges. 
North we saw no land higher than about six tliousand feet 
above the sea, but bearing two hundred and fifteen degrees 
magnetic, at the distance of about fifty miles from our 
camp on the Nyanza, we saw a towering mountain, its sum- 
mit covered with snow, and probably seventeen or eigh- 
teen thousand feet above the sea. It is called Kuevenzori, 



* emin's forces. 671 

and will probably prove a rival to Kilimanjaro, I am 
not sure that it may not prove to be the Gordon Bennett 
Mountain in Gambaragara, but there are two reasons for 
doubting it to be the same — first, it is a little too far west 
for the position of the latter as given by me in 1876 ; and, 
secondly, we saw no snow on the Gordon Bennett. I 
might mention a third, which is that the latter is a perfect 
€one apparently, while the Buevenzori is an oblong mount, 
nearly level on th^ summit, with two ridges extending 
northeast and southwest. 

" I have met only three natives who have seen the lake 
toward the south. They agree that it is large, but not so 
large as the Albert Nyanza. 

" The Aruwimi becomes known as the Suhali about one 
hundred miles above Yambuya ; as it nears the Nepoko 
it is called the Nevoa ; beyond its confluence with the 
Nepoko it is known as the No- Welle ; three hundred 
miles from the Congo it is called the Itiri, which is soon 
changed into the Ituri, which name it retains to its source. 
Ten minutes' march from the Ituri waters we saw the 
Nyanza, like a mirror in its immense gulf. 

" Before closing my letter let me touch more at large 
on the subject which brought me to this land — viz., Emin 
Pasha. 

" The Pasha has two battalions of regulars under him — 
the first, consisting of about seven hundred and fifty rifles, 
occupies Duffle, Honyu, Lahore, Muggi, Kirri, Bedden, 
Bejaf; the second battalion, consisting of six hundred and 
forty men, guard the stations of Wadelai, Fatiko, Mahagi, 
and Mswa, a line of communication along the Nyanza 
and Nile about one hundred and eighty miles in length. 
In the interior west of the Nile he retains three or four 
small stations — fourteen in all. Besides these two battal- 
ions he has quite a respectable force of irregulars, sailors, 



672 TALKING WITH EMIN. * 

artisans, clerks, servants. 'Altogether,' he said, 'if I con- 
sent to go away from here we shall have about eight thou- 
sand people with us.' 

" ' Were I in your place I would not hesitate one 
moment or be a second in doubt what to do.^ 

'' ' What you say is quite true, but we have such a large 
number of women and children, probably ten thousand 
people altogether. How can they all be brought out of 
here ? We shall want a great number of carriers.' 

" ' Carriers ! carriers for what,' I asked. 

" ' For the women and children. You surely would not 
leave them, and they cannot travel?' 

" ' The women must walk. It will do them more good 
than harm. As for the little children, load them on the 
donkeys. I hear you have about two hundred of them. 
Your people will not travel very far the first month, but 
little by little they will get accustomed to it. Our Zanzi- 
bar women crossed Africa on my second expedition. Why 
cannot your black women do the same ? Have no fear of 
them ; they will do better than the men.' 

" ' They would require a vast amount of provision for 
the road.' 

"'True, but you have some thousands of cattle, I 
believe. Those will furnish beef. The countries through 
which we pass must furnish grain and vegetable food.' 

" ' Well, well, we will defer further talk till to-morrow.' 

" May 1st, 1888.— Halt in camp at Nsabe. The Pasha 
came ashore from the steamer ' Khedive ' about one p. m., 
and in a short time we commenced our conversation again. 
Many of the arguments used above were repeated, and he 
said: 

" ' What you told me yesterday has led me to think 
that it is best we should retire from here. The Egyptians 
are very willing to leave. There are of these about one 



DIFFICULTIES OF REMOVAL.' 678 

hundred men, besides their women and children. Of 
these there is no doubt, and even if I stayed here I should 
be glad to be rid of them, because they undermine my 
authority and nullify all my endeavors ibr retreat. When 
I informed them that Khartoum had fallen and Gordon 
Pasha was slain, they always told the Nubians that it was 
a concocted story, that some day we should see the steamers 
ascend the river for their relief But of the regulars who 
compose the first and second battalions I am extremely 
doubtful ; they have led such a free and happy life here 
that they would demur at leaving a country where they 
have enjoyed luxuries they cannot command in Egypt. 
The soldiers are married, and several of them have, 
harems. Many of the irregulars would also retire and 
follow me. Now, supposing the regulars refuse to leave, 
you can imaging that my position would be a difficult one. 
Would I be right in leaving them to their fate ? Would 
it not be consigning them all to ruin ? I should have to 
leave them their arms and ammunition, and on returning 
all discipline would be at an end. Disputes would arise, 
and factions would be formed. The more ambitious would 
aspire to be chiefs by force, and from these rivalries would 
spring hate and mutual slaughter until there would be 
none of them left.' 

" * Supposing you resolve to stay, what of the Egyp- 
tians V I asked. 

*' ' Oh ! these I shall have to ask you to be good enough 
to take with you.' 

" ^ Now, will you. Pasha, do me the favor to ask Captain 
Casati if we are to have the pleasure of his company to 
the sea, for we have been instructed to assist him also 
should we meet T 

" Captain Casati answered through Emin Pasha : 

" * What the Governor Emin decides upon shall be the 



674 PARTING WORDS. 

rule of conduct for me also. If the Governor stays, I stay. 
If the Governor goes, I go.' 

" ' Well, I see, Pasha, that in the event of your staying 
your responsibilities will be great.' 

" A laugh. The sentence was translated to Casati, and 
the gallant Captain replied : 

" ' Oh ! I beg pardon, but I absolve the Pasha from all 
responsibility connected with me, because I am governed 
by my own choice entirely.' 

" Thus day after day I recorded faithfully the inter^ 
views I had with Emin Paslia ; but these extracts reveal 
as much as is necessary for you to understand the position. 
I left Mr. Jephson thirteen of my Soudanese, and sent a 
message to be read to the troops, as the Pasha requested. 
Everything, else is left until I return with the united ex- 
pedition to the Nyanza. 

'' Within two months the Pasha proposed to visit Fort 
Bodo, taking Mr. Jephson with him. At Fort Bodo I 
have left instructions to the officers to destroy the fort and 
accompany the Pasha to the Nyanza. I hope to meet them 
all again on the Nyanza, as I intend making a short cut 
to the Nyanza along a new road." 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

THE EXPLORER S LATEST WORK. 

THE MISFORTUNES OF THE EXPEDITION DUE TO THE JUNGLES— THE FORESTS THROUGH WHICH 
LIVINGSTONE STRUGGLED— MR. STANLEY'S DESCRIPTION OF THE BOUNDLESS WOODS— HORRORS 
OF THE MA.RCH— EMERGING INTO THE SUNSHINE— FEASTING IN A LAND OP PLENTY- 
SCENES IN THE VILLAGES— GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION— THE ARUWIMI— 
A SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAIN AT THE EQUATOR— THE LAKES— CANNIBALS— MR. STANLEY'S 
FUTURE WORK AND FAME. 

THIS expedition was, of course, a singularly disastrous 
one. With any other man than Mr. Stanley at its 
head, it probably would have been a total failure. It was 
only his indomitable will and fertility of resource that 
saved the entire party from annihilation. But all the 
misfortunes of the party, almost, were due to the great 
forests through which they were obliged to make their way. 
In the open county they made good progress. But the 
eternal gloom of those vast forests seemed to crush the 
spirits of the men, as well as sicken their bodies. It was 
a veritable Inferno. 

" Until we penetrated and marched through it," Mr. 
Stanley writes, " this region was entirely unexplored and 
untrodden by either white or Arab." His graphic descrip- 
tion of some characteristics of the forest which had to be 
penetrated is worth quoting. The difficulties " consisted 
of creepers ranging from one-eighth inch to fifteen inches 
in diameter, swinging across the path in bowlines or loops, 
sometimes massed and twisted together; also of a low 
dense bush, occupying the sites of old clearings, which 

675 



876 A NEW DUTY. 

had to be carved through before a passage was possible. 
Where years had elapsed since the clearings had been 
abandoned, we found a young forest and the spaces between 
the trees choked with climbing plants, vegetable creepers 
and tall plants. This kind had to be tunnelled through 
before an inch of progress could be made," This is 
evidently the forest through which poor Livingstone strug- 
gled his way in the Manyuema country in the months 
before Mr. Stanley relieved him. Mr. Stanley shows that 
the region traversed by him is probably the most exten- 
sive forest region in all Africa, a region, moreover, resem- 
bling in many respects the tropical forest region of South 
America. 

'' While in England," says Mr. Stanley, '' considering 
the best ]:outes open to the Nyanza (Albert), I thought I 
was very liberal in allowing myself two weeks' march to 
cross the forest region lying between the Congo and the 
grass land, but you may imagine our feelings when month 
after month saw us marching, tearing, plowing, cutting 
through that same continuous forest. It took us one 
hundred and sixty days before we could say, ^ Thank God, 
we are out of the darkness at last.' At one time we were 
all — whites and blacks — almost ' done up.' September, 
October, and half of that month of November, 1887, will 
not be forgotten by us. October will be specially memor- 
able to us for the sufferings we endured. Our officers are 
heartily sick of the forest, but the loyal blacks, a band of 
one hundred and thirty, followed me once again into the 
wild, trackless forest, with its hundreds of inconveniences, 
to assist their comrades of the rear column. Try and 
imagine some of these inconveniences. Take a thick 
Scottish copse, dripping with rain ; imagine this copse to 
be a mere undergrowth, nourished under the impenetrable 
shades of ancient trees, ranging from one hundred to one 



TERRIBLE FORESTS. 677 

hundred and eighty feet high ; briers and thorns abund- 
ant ; lazy creeks, meandering through the depths of the 
jungle, and sometimes a deep affluent of a great river. 
Imagine this forest and jungle in all stages of decay and 
growth — old trees falling, leaning perilously over, fallen 
prostrate ; ants and insects of all kinds, sizes, and colors 
murmuring around ; monkeys and chimpanzees above, 
queer noises of birds and animals, crashes in the jungle 
as troops of elephants rush away ; dwarfs with poisoned 
arrows securely hidden behind some buttress or in some 
dark recess ; strong, brown-bodied aborigines with terribly 
sharp spears, standing poised, still as dead stumps ; rain 
pattering down on you every other day in the year ; an 
impure atmosphere, with its dread consequences, fever and 
dysentery ; gloom throughout the day, and darkness 
almost palpable throughout the night ; and then, if you 
will imagine such a forest extending the entire distance 
from Plymouth to Peterhead, you will have a fair idea of 
some of the inconveniences endured by us from June 28th 
to December 5th, 1887, and from June 1st, 1888, to the 
present date, to continue again from the present date till 
about December 10th, 1888, when I hope then to say a 
last farewell to the Congo Forest. 

" Now that we have gone through and through this 
forest region, I only feel a surprise that I did not give a 
greater latitude to my ideas respecting its extent ; for had 
we thought of it, it is only what might have been deduced 
from our knowledge of the great sources of moisture 
necessary to supply the forest with the requisite sap and 
vitality. Think of the large extent of the South Atlantic 
Ocean, whose vapors are blown during nine months of the 
year in this direction. Think of the broad Congo, varying 
from one to sixteen miles wide, which has a stretch of one 
thousand four hundred miles, supplying another immeasur- 



G78 DARK DAYS. 

able quantity of moisture, to be distilled into rain, and 
mist, and dew over this insatiable forest ; and then another 
six hundred miles of the Aruwimi or Ituri itself, and then 
you will cease to wonder that there are about one hundred 
and fifty days of rain every year in this region, and that 
the Congo Forest covers such a wide area. 

" Until we set foot on the grass land, something like 
fifty miles west of the Albert Nyanza, we saw nothing 
that looked like a smile, or a kind thought, or a moral 
sensation. The aborigines are wild, utterly savage, and 
incorrigibly vindictive. The dwarfs — called Wambutti — 
are worse still, far worse. Animal life is likewise so wild 
and shy that no sport is to be enjoyed. The gloom of the 
forest is perpetual. The face of the river, reflecting its 
black walls of vegetation, is dark and sombre. The sky 
one-half of the time every day resembles a winter sky in 
England ; the face of Nature and life is fixed and joyless. 
If the sun charges through the black clouds enveloping it 
and a kindly wind brushes the masses of vapor below the 
horizon, and the bright light reveals our surroundings, it 
is only to tantalize us with a short-lived vision of bril- 
liancy and beauty of verdure. 

" Emerging from the forest, finally, we all became en- 
raptured. Like a captive unfettered and set free, we 
rejoiced at sight of the blue cope of heaven, and freely 
bathed in the warm sunshine, and aches and gloomy 
thoughts and unwholesome ideas were banished. You 
have heard how the London citizen, after months of de- 
votion to business in the gaseous atmosphere in that great 
city, falls into raptures at sight of the green fields and 
hedges, meadows and trees, and how his emotions, crowd- 
ing on his dazed senses, are indescribable. Indeed, I have 
seen a Derby day once, and I fancied then that I only saw 
madmen, for great, bearded, hoary- headed fellows, though 



ox THE OPEN GROUND. 679 

well dressed enough, behaved in a most idiotic fa^Jiion, 
amazing me quite. Well, on this 5th of December we 
became suddenly smitten with madness in the same manner. 
Had you seen us you would have thought w^e had lost our 
senses, or that ^ Legion ' had entered and taken possession 
of us. We raced with our loads over a wide, unfenced 
field (like an English park for the softness of Its grass), 
and herds of buffalo, eland, roan antelope, stood on either 
hand with pointed ears and wide eyes, w^ondering at the 
sudden wave of human beiugs, yelling with joy, as they 
issued out of the dark depths of the forest. 

" On the confines of this forest, near a village which was 
rich in sugar cane, ripe bananas, tobacco, Indian corn, 
and other productions of aboriginal husbandry, we came 
across an ancient woman lying asleep. I believe she w^as 
a leper and an outcast, but she was undoubtedly ugly, 
vicious, and old ; and, being old, she was obstinate. I 
practiced all kinds of seductive arts to get her to do some- 
thing besides crossly mumbling, but of no avail. Curiosity 
having drawn toward us about a hundred of our people, 
she fastened fixed eyes on one young fellow (smooth-faced 
and good-looking), and smiled. I caused him to sit near 
her, and she became voluble enough — beauty and youth 
had tamed the ' beast.' From her talk we learned that 
there was a powerful tribe, called the Banzanza, wdth a 
great king, to the northeast of our camp, of whom w^e 
might be well afraid, as the people were as numerous as 
grass. Had we learned this ten days earlier, I might have 
become anxious for the result, but it now only drew a con- 
temptuous smile from the j^eople, for each one, since he 
had seen the grass land and evidences of meat, had been 
transformed into a hero. 

" We poured out on the plain a frantic multitude, but 
after an hour or two we became an orderly column. Into 



680 EEVELLING IN PLENTY. 

the emptied villages of the open country we proceeded to 
regale ourselves on melon, rich-flavored bananas and plan- 
tains, and great pots full of wine. The fowls, unaware 
of the presence of a hungry mob, were knocked down, 
plucked, roasted,, or boiled ; the goats, meditatively brows- 
ing, or chewing the cud, were suddenly seized and decapi- 
tated, and the grateful aroma of roast meat gratified our 
senses. An abundance, a prodigal abundance, of good 
things, had awaited our eruption into the grass land. 
Every village was well stocked with provisions, and even 
luxuries long denied to us. Under such fare the men be- 
came most robust, diseases healed as if by magic, the weak 
became strong, and there was not a goee-goee or chicken- 
heart left. Only the Babusesse, near the main Ituri, were 
tempted to resist the invasion." 

It is not possible yet fully to determine the geograph- 
ical results of the expedition. That they are very great 
and important appears certain. In the brief narratives 
already furnished by Mr. Stanley many facts of value and 
interest appear, adding new details to the map of Africa. 
The Aruwimi, Mr. Stanley says, is also called the Ituri, 
the Dudu, the Biyerre, the Luhali, the Nevva, and the 
Nowelle-Itire. Throughout several hundred miles of its 
upper part it is invariably called the Ituri, as it is by the 
natives around the Albert Nyanza. 

''The main Ituri, at the distance of six hundred and 
eighty miles from its mouth," says Mr. Stanley, " is one 
hundred and twenty-five yards wide, nine feet deep, and 
has a current of three knots. It appears to run parallel 
with the Nyanza. Near that group of cones and hills 
affectionately named Mount Schweinfurth, Mount Junker, 
and Mount Speke, I would place its highest source. Draw 
three or four respectable streams draining into it from the 
crest of the plateau overlooking the Albert Nyanza, and 



COURSE OF THE ITURI. 681 

two or three respectable streams flowing into it from north- 
westerly, let the main stream flow southwest to near north 
latitude l°,give it a bow-like form north latitude 1° to north 
latitude 1° 50', then let it flow with curves and bends down 
to north latitude 1° 17' near Yambunya, and you have a 
sketch of the course of the Aruwimi, or Ituri, from the 
highest source down to its mouth, and the length of this 
Congo tributary will be eight hundred miles. We have 
traveled on it and along its banks for six hundred and 
eighty miles ; on our first march to the Nyanza for one 
hundred and fifty-six miles along its banks or near its 
vicinity ; we returned to obtain our boat from Kilonga- 
Longa's ; then we conveyed the boat to the Nyanza for as 
many miles again ; or four hundred and eighty miles we 
traversed its flanks or voyaged on its waters to hunt up 
the rear column of the expedition ; for as many miles we 
must retrace our steps to the Albert Nyanza for the third 
time. You will, therefore agree with me that we have 
sufficient knowledge of this river for all practical pur- 
poses. 

" On the 25th of May, 1888, Etnin Pasha's Soudanese 
were drawn up in line to salute the advance column as it 
marched in file toward the Ituri River from the Nyanza. 
Half an hour after we parted. I was musing as I walked 
of the Pasha and his steamer when my gun-bearer cried 
out, ^ See, sir, what a big mountain ; it is covered with 
salt ! ' I gazed in the direction he pointed out, and there 
sure enough — 

' " Some blue peaks in the distance rose, 
And white against the cold white sky 
Shone out the crowning snows.' 4 

or, rather,^tobetrue, a blue mountain of prodigious height 
and mass. This, then, said I, must be the Puwenzori, 
which the natives said had somethino; white, like the metal 



682 CORRECTING REPORTS. 

of my lamp, on the top. By prismatic compass bearing, 
the centre of the summit bore 215° (magnetic) from a 
spot five miles from the shore of the Nyanza. I should 
estimate its distance to be quite fifty miles from where we 
stood. Whether it is Mount Gordon Bennett or not I am 
uncertain. Against the supposition is the fact that I saw 
no snow on the latter in 1876, that its shape is vastly 
different, and that Buwenzori is a little too far west for the 
position I gave of Gordon Bennett, and I doubt that 
Gordon Bennett Mount, if its latitude is correct, could be 
seen from a distance of eighty geographical miles in an 
atmosphere not very remarkable for its clearness. I should 
say that the snow line seemed to be about one thousand 
feet from the summit. There is plenty of room for both 
Buwenzori and Gordon Bennett in the intervening space 
between Beatrice Gulf and the Albert Nyanza. 

** Apropos of the latter lake, I am utterly at a loss to 
conjecture how Sir Samuel Baker could stretch it to such an 
infinite lengtli to the soutiiwest from the position of the high 
land or terrace, or knoll above Vacovia or Mbakovia. Its 
extremest southern point is about 1° 11' north lat. I think 
about four or five miles at the utmost from the jDlace where 
he stood. To make matters more complicated, he says in his 
book that the day he viewed it was beautifully clear. If so, 
he should have seen that he was merely looking at a shallow 
bay some ten miles wide and four or five miles deep ; that 
into a tongue of the bay enters the Semliki Biver, a south- 
ern tributary of the lake, flowing from the southAvest 
through an almost level plain. And if it were a ' beautifully 
clear ' day, he could not fail to have seen this snowy 
mountain right before him as he looked towatd the south- 
west. ^ The blue mountains ' also are no other than the 
slope of the plateau five thousand two hundred feet above 
the sea, or two thousand nine hundred feet above the 




fcom Harper's Weekly. 



EMIN PASHA. 



Copyright, 1887, by Harper & Brothert. 



GEOGEAPHICAL CHANGES. 685 

Albert. That remarkable cataract also is only the wet face 
of sheet rock washed by a small stream about ten feet 
wide. 

" Until we stood at north lat. 1° 20', looking down upon 
the lake, I half suspected that Colonel Mason had com- 
mitted a grievous error in his observations, or that a large 
bank of mud, overgrown with tall reeds, had prevented 
him from seeing the lake beyond ; but, unfortunately for 
■ Sir Samuel's huge lake, Colonel Mason has done his work, 
and mapped the lake so well that there is nothing left for 
me but to vouch for the general accuracy of his chart of 
the Albert Nyanza. 

" At the south and southwest of the lake there is no 
mystery. A century (or perhaps more) ago, the lake 
must have been some twelve or fifteen miles longer, 
and considerably broader opposite Mbakovia than it is 
now. With the wearing away of reefs obstructing the 
Nile below Wadelai, the lake has rapidly receded, and is 
still doing so to the astonishment of the Pasha (Emin), 
who first saw Lake Albert seven or eight years ago. For, 
he says, * islands that were near the west shore have now 
become headlands occupied by our stations and native 
villages.' 

" Across the lake from Nyamsassie to Mbakovia, its 
color indicates great shallowness, being brown and muddy 
like that of a river flowing through alluvial soil. Some 
of this must, of course, be due to the Semliki River, but 
while on board the Khedive steamer from Nyamsassie to 
Nsabi, I noticed that the pole of the sounding-man at the 
bow constantly touched from a mile to a mile and a half 
from shore. Near the south end the steamer has to 
anchor about five miles from shore. 

" At the southwest end, the plain rises from the edge of 
the lake one foot in one hundred and eighty feet. The 



686 UiS'SOLVED PROBLEMS. 

plain of the south end rises at the same rate for about ten 
miles. A slight change then takes place as the eastern 
and western walls of the table-land draw nearer, and 
debris from their slopes, washed by rains and swe]3t by- 
strong winds, humus of grass and thorn forest, have 
added to its height above the lake. Natives say that 
south of this the plain slopes steeply to the level of the 
uplands. A shoulder of the western wall prevented us 
from verifying this, and still beyond must be left until we 
take our journey homeward. 

" I look upon this country lying between the Albert 
Nyanza and the lake discovered by me in 1876 as prom- 
ising curious revelations. Up to this moment I am not 
certain to which river the last lake belongs — whether to 
the Nile or the Congo. I believe to the latter, but what 
I am sure of is that it has no connection with the Albert 
Nyanza. The Kuwenzori slopes must supply a large 
23ortion of waters of the Semliki River ; the plateau 
southwest and west must suj^jDly the rest. But it is at the 
water-parting between the Semliki and some other river 
south or southwest that real interest begins. 

" The tribes inhabiting the forest and valley of the Ituri 
are undoubted cannibals. Between the Nepoko and the 
grass land the dwarfs are exceedingly numerous ; they are 
called Wambutti. The Pasha's people with us recognize 
in them the Tokki-tikki further north. A few only of 
these people are to be found south of the Ituri. I suppose 
we saw about one hundred and fifty forest villages or 
camps of the Wambutti. They are a venomous, coAvardly, 
and thievish race, very expert with their arrows, as we 
have found to our cost." 

The future of Mr. Stanley's operations in Africa will 
doubtless form a fitting continuation of the marvelous 
career which we have narrated. Where he now is, or 



STANLEY AFEICANUS. 687 

what lie is doing, cannot be stated with any degree of 
accuracy, nor even conjectured. There is every reason, 
however, to believe him to be occupied in some great work 
that will serve to advance the best welfare of the human 
race, and to speed the progress of the world toward that 
consummation of material and spiritual excellence toward 
which the whole creation moves. And though such aims 
are far beneath his generous motives, his deeds will, when 
next he returns to his native and his adoj^ted countries, 
add new and greater honors to him, and crown with 
brighter glories still the name of Stanley Afeicanus. 







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